A Waukegan company is pledging to dramatically reduce its emissions of cancer-causing ethylene oxide, even as it urges the Trump administration to reject decades of research showing the volatile gas is far more dangerous than previously thought.
Under a proposal sent to the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency, Medline Industries would install new pollution control equipment intended to prevent nearly all of the ethylene oxide it uses from escaping into surrounding neighborhoods.
Annual emissions would be limited to 150 pounds, down from 3,058 pounds reported by the company in 2014.
Medline’s suggested improvements are the latest response to a federal study that found ethylene oxide pollution is responsible for alarmingly high cancer risks in four predominantly Latino and African American census tracts surrounding the company’s assembly plant off Skokie Highway and Casimir Pulaski Drive.
More than 19,000 people live in low- and moderate-income subdivisions within those tracts, where the lifetime risk of developing breast cancer, leukemia and lymphomas is up to five times higher than the national average, according to the National Air Toxics Assessment released in August by the U.S. EPA.
The Chicago Tribune first reported in November that Medline was the third-largest source of ethylene oxide in Illinois in 2014, the last year for which comprehensive figures are available, trailing only Vantage Specialty Chemicals in nearby Gurnee and Sterigenics in west suburban Willowbrook.
So far the two Lake County facilities have avoided the intense scrutiny that shut down Sterigenics in February. But Medline officials acknowledged this week that they are taking action under pressure from community activists and elected officials, including U.S. Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth and Reps. Brad Schneider and Lauren Underwood.
“We are confident that the controls we are putting in place will address the community’s concerns,” Rob Calia, vice president of Medline’s quality division, told the Tribune Editorial Board during a Tuesday presentation.
Officials from the company and the Illinois EPA will outline the proposed changes during a public meeting from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday at Whittier Elementary School, 901 N. Lewis Ave., Waukegan.
In an email response to questions, the state agency said computer modeling estimates that Medline’s new pollution controls should substantially reduce future cancer risks for the facility’s neighbors.
Based on Medline’s 2014 emissions, the U.S. EPA concluded that more than one person in surrounding neighborhoods could get cancer for every 10,000 exposed during their lifetime — a risk the agency considers unacceptable. Limiting future emissions to 150 pounds a year will drive that rate well below federal guidelines, said Kim Biggs, an Illinois EPA spokeswoman.
Medline executives said the additional pollution controls will capture more than 99.9 percent of the ethylene oxide used to sterilize surgical kits and other medical equipment assembled at the Waukegan plant.
The company is planning a more aggressive approach than Sterigenics, which installed ducts that directed emissions previously released through vents into pollution control equipment at Willowbrook facility. Once Medline’s project is completed, Calia said, the Waukegan facility will operate under negative pressure to prevent ethylene oxide from escaping through doors and vents. Emissions from sterilization chambers and storage areas will be reduced with two types of scrubbing devices, with any leftover gas released into the air through a single stack that is constantly monitored.
Sterigenics executives promised similar improvements after installing new equipment in Willowbrook. Yet the U.S. EPA kept finding high levels of ethylene oxide in nearby residential areas until the plant was shut down.
Members of Stop EtO Lake County, a recently organized community group, welcomed Medline’s proposal but remain skeptical.
“If this doesn’t work, what happens?” said the group’s legal adviser, Nancy Loeb, director of the Environmental Advocacy Center at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law. “From my reading of what the company and state are proposing, there is no guarantee Illinois EPA will take enforcement action if the community is still in danger.”
The Trump administration has repeatedly brushed aside petitions from members of the Illinois congressional delegation to test air quality near Medline and Vantage, raising questions about unequal treatment for the largely minority communities at risk in Lake County, in particular when compared with the U.S. EPA’s response in predominantly white, middle- and upper-income neighborhoods near Sterigenics in DuPage County.
Air samples collected in the Willowbrook area provided residents and elected officials with powerful evidence to challenge Sterigenics.
Faced with their own outraged constituents, officials from Waukegan, Gurnee and Lake County are splitting the costs for a contractor to install the same type of monitoring equipment around the two facilities that the federal regulators used in Willowbrook. Testing is scheduled to begin in early June, but for now it appears the contractor will have stopped collecting air samples by the time Medline finishes installing its new pollution controls.
Both Medline and Vantage have promised to conduct their own air testing, though neither company has revealed its plans to the public.
Medline contends it needs to use ethylene oxide because it is a proven, government-approved method to sterilize medical equipment, in particular surgical kits that contain several types of materials, some of which can be damaged by alternatives such as steam or radiation. Calia and Lara Simmons, the president of Medline’s quality division, cautioned that attempts to ban ethylene oxide would wreak havoc on their operations and endanger patients.
While the company is taking steps to reduce the Waukegan plant’s impact on its neighbors, it also has joined chemical industry lobbyists who contend that ethylene oxide poses few, if any, health risks to ordinary Americans.
Among other things, Medline hired a former scientist for one of the biggest manufacturers of the toxic gas who has co-authored several industry-funded studies rejected by the U.S. EPA and independent scientific reviewers. The company also has called for another analysis of the chemical, part of a concerted effort by makers and users of ethylene oxide to overturn a stringent safety limit established by the EPA in 2016 after more than a decade of study and two rounds of independent review delayed several times by industry opposition.
Industry lobbyists are continuing to press their case with sympathetic officials in the Trump administration. But there are several signs that Medline, Sterigenics and other companies that operate sterilization facilities eventually will be nudged, if not forced, by government agencies to develop safer methods.
On Wednesday, the U.S. EPA announced it will propose new regulations this summer that reflect the agency’s updated conclusions about health dangers posed by ethylene oxide.
The Food and Drug Administration, which regulates medical devices, is launching an “innovation challenge” intended to pressure companies to reduce or eliminate use of the gas.
At the state level, lawmakers in Springfield are debating a bipartisan measure that would crack down on every sterilization facility in Illinois.
“This legislation will keep Sterigenics closed and minimize emissions throughout Illinois,” Jen Walling, executive director of the Illinois Environmental Council, said Wednesday after a House committee approved the bill. “This is a win for public health across the state.”
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