The Shelby County Health Department (SCHD) is seeking state and federal help to study the health impacts of emissions from Sterilization Services but says the company is operating within its legal rights.
The company uses ethylene oxide (EtO) in its South Memphis facility to sterilize medical equipment. The gas is odorless and colorless and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wasn’t aware emissions could raise cancer rates until 2016.
Now, the EPA says EtO emissions from the facility could pose a risk to those living in the neighborhood around it. The agency held public meetings in Memphis last year to warn the residents but said there was little they could do. While the EPA is working on new laws to reduce EtO emissions, companies like Sterilization Services will likely have up to three years to comply with it.
On Thursday, the SCHD said it is working with the EPA and the Tennessee Department of Health (TDH) to educate and inform the residents around the facility at 2396 Florida Street. It has asked for a public health assessment and a health consultations from the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR).
The department has also asked the TDH’s Cancer Registry to study the incidence of cancer around the facility. The review will determine cancer rates around the facility compared to those in other parts of Shelby County. Once complete, the study will be released to the public.
The department will also meet with residents to help them understand health risks and find the health screening and treatment resources available to them.
SCHD will update the Shelby County Commission on the situation next month.
The department cannot, however, force the company to immediately reduce EtO emissions, it said Thursday. Sterilization Services now meets current federal, state, and local legal standards of emissions, the department said, and cannot be “legal standards higher than existing ones.” But the department said it is aware of the risks.
“The people of South Memphis face inequitable health, social, and environmental conditions in comparison to many other parts of Shelby County,” said SCHD director Dr. Michelle Taylor. “Achieving environmental justice is a part of (SCHD’s) mission to promote, protect and improve the health of all in Shelby County.”
The statement on Sterilization Services from the SCHD comes after the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) urged action on the matter earlier this week in a letter on behalf of Memphis Community Against Pollution (MCAP). The letter says local laws allow the health department to act when air pollution creates an emergency situation and this situation is one, MCAP said.
“It has been six months since the (EPA) released updated information on the dangers of ethylene oxide to humans and almost four months since the EPA held public meetings in Memphis,” MCAP board president and co-founder KeShaun Pearson said in the letter. “Since then, the (SCHD) has yet to update the impacted community members about the status of Sterilization Services of Tennessee or engage with us in a meaningful way.
“South Memphis residents deserve to breathe clean air, and we demand immediate action from the (SCHD).”
