At Monumental Baptist church in South Memphis, local residents lined up to tell federal officials how cancer possibly linked to their environment had taken their loved ones, friends and family.
Officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency flew into town to inform residents of the possible deadly consequences of living near Sterilization Services of Tennessee, a facility that has been located in the neighborhood since 1976.
The company uses ethylene oxide (EtO) to sterilize items as disparate as medical equipment and spices. It operates under the necessary federal and local permits and no protective measures are required to prevent EtO from escaping into the nearby community, including those who worked nearby and children who attended nearby schools.
But in the last few years, EPA officials have learned that EtO was more dangerous than they previously knew. Breathing the chemical may have increased the risk for cancer and other health risks, with risk increasing due to proximity.
Children are also more susceptible, said Daniel Blackman, an EPA administrator responsible for overseeing four states, including Tennessee
Controlled emissions are regulated by equipment designed to prevent EtO from escaping the facility, but fugitive emissions — or emissions that escape the facility — cause the most risk and are not covered under current regulations.
“Risk in Memphis is high and we’re very concerned about that risk,” said Blackman.
EPA officials also noted how there was little residents could do to minimize their risk beyond leaving their homes in South Memphis. There are no air filters that could protect them inside or outside their homes, and spending more time indoors does not reduce their risk.
“The best solution to reducing this risk is to reduce the amount of currently not regulated EtO, fugitive emission that is going out of this facility,” said Caroline Freeman, EPA air and radiation division director.
“As a matter of fact, spending less time near the facility would in fact reduce your risk,” she added.
On Tuesday night, EPA officials addressed resident’s concerns. The Shelby County Health Department director, Dr. Michelle Taylor, also attended.
As soon as the presentation was finished, residents from the affected neighborhoods– Riverside and Mallory Heights–left their church pews to stand in line and address the EPA officials directly.
Maxine Thomas, a South Memphis resident, walked to the microphone, carefully balancing on her cane as she asked how residents were expected to protect themselves.
“What are we going to do? Just die?” she asked. “I want to live a long life. I’m 83 years old.”
Another resident told officials she was born and raised near Sterilization Services of Tennessee, and she lived close enough that she could throw a rock at the building from her backyard. Although she later moved away, she later developed breast cancer, and several of her neighbors had also have had cancer.
“Some of us have lost parents. I lost my father,” said Carolyn Lanton.
Due to the cancer risks, EPA officials and the Shelby County Health Department are looking into how many cancer cases were connected to the residents in the area. The department is also working on creating resources for residents without the means to get tested for cancer, said Taylor.
“We are already working with all of our hospital partners in deep conversations about the number of resources that we will be able to bring there. We know that there are a lot of people in the community who are either uninsured or underinsured, don’t forget about that,” said Taylor. “So we have a lot of people, and a lot of that has to do with what’s going on at the state level, the fact that we are not a Medicaid expansion state. Don’t get me started on that.”
The EPA is also planning to propose new regulations targeting EtO emissions in the coming months, and a final proposal is expected in 2023. Once the regulations are set, the Clean Air Act allows facilities two to three years to comply with the requirements and theEPA has been encouraging facilities to work on reducing current emissions levels.
We have been dying disproportionately, and what we’re being told is to wait. We can’t afford to wait. It’s that we are being sacrificed for polluters. We are being sacrificed for their profits, and we are being sacrificed because people in positions of power are not caring about our lives.
– Justin Pearson, co-founder of Memphis Community Against Pollution
But residents asked why they were still being asked to take on the risk of living near a cancer-causing facility that only employed eight workers, they noted. Others complained that EPA officials had offered few solutions.
“We need something done now. We can’t keep dying for some (profit),” said Adrian Ward, a resident.
“We don’t need nothing but a solution to the problem. Ask them to move somewhere else less populated,” he added.
The problem is, said EPA officials, that Sterilization Services of Tennessee has not broken any regulations and has all the necessary permits. While the facility is one of 100 in the nation, the Memphis facility is one of 23 with higher risk — and no law prevented the facility from moving into a primarily low-income, Black community, a notion that many community activists have labeled as environmental racism.
“We have been dying disproportionately, and what we’re being told is to wait. We can’t afford to wait,” said Justin J. Pearson, co-founder of Memphis Community Against Pollution. “It’s that we are being sacrificed for polluters. We are being sacrificed for their profits, and we are being sacrificed because people in positions of power are not caring about our lives.”
“The Sterilization Services has got to go,” he said.
“It’s easy for you to say what you said, and I agree with the majority of why people are here. I think the challenge is that’s not how this process works, ” Blackman retorted, adding that communities needed to challenge local zoning laws in order to make the facility move.
Pearson then addressed the EPA panel directly about their efforts to inform the community about the risks they inherited just by living in South Memphis.
“You have failed to adequately inform this community of what’s going on,” he said, adding that MCAP volunteers sent out thousands of flyers and text messages.
The community cannot wait on new regulations, said Pearson, and MCAP planned on continuing mobilization efforts to enact swiffer changes.
“This is the movement that we’re talking about, and we need you to go back to Atlanta and do your job well and know that you’ve got Memphis to support you,” he said.
“But we don’t have time to wait,” said Pearson.
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