The state Department of Environmental Resources this week announced it has fined Sera-Tec Biologicals $25,000 for illegal disposal of medical waste at the Clinton County Landfill in 1988.

Intravenous blood bags, bloody gauze, cotton swabs and tubing used by Sera-Tec, rear of 120 S. Allen St., were discovered by a landfill operator in October 1988.

The penalty was determined after a 15-month assessment of damages and related costs.

Sera-Tec is a national organization that supplies plasma to pharmaceutical companies. The local Sera-Tec, which buys blood plasma from donors to treat blood disorders, including hemophilia, has operated in State College for 10 years.

The waste, which had not been sterilized, was placed in household- type garbage bags, said DER Community Relations Coordinator Daniel T. Spadoni yesterday.

Directly after the incident, Sera-Tec, based in Harrisburg, submitted letters to the DER to explain how the waste was disposed in the landfill.

Carl Lucas, vice president of operations at Sera-Tec, would not comment on the explanation.

"We are now in compliance (with DER regulations)," Lucas said yesterday.

Those regulations, instituted in April 1988, require that medical waste, including blood products and any disease-producing materials, be placed in red garbage bags, sterilized and incinerated, Spadoni said.

Jerry Lacy, executive director of the Clinton County Solid Waste Authority, said when the landfill operator compressed the garbage for disposal, the brown plastic garbage bags broke open, exposing the medical waste.

"The waste held the whole blood in the bags . . . visible blood," Lacy said. "Hundreds of blood bags were in each garbage bag."

About a dozen garbage bags were found on the site, he added.

Once the waste was discovered, the authority contacted the DER and an investigation revealed the waste's origin, Lacy said.

Under an order from the DER, Sera-Tec immediately removed the infectious garbage, Lucas said. The medical products were shipped to an infectious waste incinerator in South Carolina.

Joseph Rosem, Sera-Tec national vice president and general manager, was unavailable to comment.