Man jailed for hazardous items

BOISE – An Alaska resident has been sentenced to 21 months in federal prison for illegally transporting explosive, hazardous materials on an Idaho highway and for storing hazardous waste in Salmon, Idaho.

U.S. District Judge B. Lynn Winmill on Monday also ordered Wasilla, Alaska, resident Krister Sven Evertson to pay more than $420,000 in restitution.

Evertson, also known as Chris Ericksson, was convicted in June of violating the Hazardous Materials Transportation Safety Act by transporting sodium metal from his former home in Salmon, Idaho, to a storage facility unit without properly labeling the tanks and drums or the trailer they were shipped on. He was also convicted of two counts of violating the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act for unlawfully storing hazardous waste at a facility in Salmon in 2002.

Sodium metal reacts violently and sometimes explosively when exposed to water, and also produces caustic sodium hydroxide and highly flammable hydrogen gas.

It is used to make the industrial chemical sodium borohydride, used to manufacture certain medications and other chemicals and also used in some types of fuel cells.