Concord Hospital will pay $205,000 in fines for hazardous waste violations that included disposing of medications in the trash instead of handling them separately, according to a settlement it reached with the state last week.

The hospital is the first health care facility in New Hampshire to face civil penalties for this type of violation, said Senior Assistant Attorney General Allen Brooks.

Concord Hospital improperly disposed of pills, IV bags, cancer treatments and "basically any pharmaceutical that would normally be given to you in a hospital setting," said John Duclos, administrator of the hazardous waste management bureau for the Department of Environmental Services. The violations were found during a January 2009 inspection.

The materials should have been sent to hazardous waste landfills or incinerators, Duclos said. Instead, pills were left in the trash and IV bags were grouped with biohazard waste. Some liquid materials were flushed and went into Concord's waste water treatment system, Brooks said. The hospital was also not identifying hazardous waste alcohols or solvents and was improperly recycling oil, Brooks said.

The settlement in the state's lawsuit to seek payment for violations...