Ohio State’s environmental woes continued last week as allegations surfaced accusing the school of mishandling radioactive materials.The Nuclear Regulatory Commission met with OSU officials to discuss 14 possible violations that commission inspectors found between June 1996 and April of this year.Among the alleged violations were five separate incidents where OSU lost radioactive materials, said Jan Strasma, spokesman for the commission.In one case, OSU reported a lost package containing radioactive material two years after it was discovered missing, the commission said.The missing packages are sealed and contain low-level radioactive material used for medical therapy and laboratory research, said Cecil Smith, assistant vice president for OSU’s Office of Environmental Health and Safety.Although Smith admitted only one package has been found, he said the materials do not pose a significant health risk.The commission also alleged that OSU provided improper security measures for radioactive materials, failed to inventory radiation sources and exceeded allowed time limits for storage of radioactive waste.Last week’s meeting with the commission gave OSU officials the opportunity to present a plan for correcting the problems and point out any errors the commission may have made, Strasma said.The alleged violations came just three years after OSU was penalized for similar problems.In 1994, OSU was fined $17,750 for 32 violations, including a failure to secure radioactive materials and to take inventories of radiation sources. The fine was among the largest levied against a university.A regulatory commission report, in conjunction with the fines, criticized OSU for a “very significant breakdown in the management of the radiation safety program.”Smith said OSU has invested more than $2.5 million since the 1994 violations, but conceded that because OSU uses radioactive materials in more than 600 locations, change “does not occur overnight.”A decision as to which violations are valid, if any, will be made in three to five weeks, Strasma said.Fines levied by the commission are in part, determined by the past record of the violator, said Angela Dauginas, a commission spokeswoman.”We give credit for a good past record,” Dauginas said. “Those who have been fined recently do not get good credits.”The commission’s investigation is the second environmental problem to plague OSU in the last two weeks.OSU has spent $25,000 so far to clean up a 3,000-gallon oil spill that was discovered leaking into the Olentangy River July 14.