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Council Wants Company to Curb Cancer-Causing Emissions

The Memphis City Council wants Sterilization Services of Tennessee to start curbing its harmful emissions now, rather than waiting for a mandate from the federal government. 

The company, on Florida Street in South Memphis, emits ethylene oxide (EtO), an odorless, colorless gas used to sterilize medical equipment and other materials. EtO is a carcinogen and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has warned that residents around the facility are at a higher risk of getting cancer. 

An EPA review of EtO found it it to be 60 times more toxic than previously believed. The agency did not learn the chemical could lead to higher cancer risks around emitting facilities until 2016. 

An EPA risk assessment of Sterilization Services published in October found that if 1 million residents around the facility breathed air with EtO all day every day for 70 years, 100 of them would be expected to develop cancer due to the exposure. However, the agency couches the projection, noting it “cannot predict whether an individual person will develop cancer.”

City council member Dr. Jeff Warren said Tuesday most of the company’s EtO emissions are not released through a smokestack. Rather, they are “fugitive emissions,” released through doors and “just the natural operations of the business,” Warren said. 

Caroline Freeman, director of the EPA’s Region 4 (which includes Memphis) told council members two weeks the agency was concerned about the situation in South Memphis. As of October, however, the company had not installed new EtO pollution controls and had no plans for new controls, according to the EPA.  

However, Freeman told council members the agency is working on new regulations for EtO emissions and hopes to issue a new rule on them this year. But the Clean Air Act gives companies two to three years to comply with new rules, according to council research. 

On Tuesday, a council committee unanimously approved a resolution asking the company to start work on the issue soon. The resolution wants Sterilization Services to immediately begin working with the EPA, the state of Tennessee, and the Shelby County Health Department “to halt fugitive emissions, in lieu of waiting for the passage of federal regulation as the health and safety of Memphians continues to be at risk.”

“This particular company has multiple locations across the country,” Warren said Tuesday. “In some of the other locations, they are already moving to initiate activities to limit fugitive emission. What we’re doing here is … asking them to initiate those same interventions that they they’r putting in other sites across the country.”

The resolution also asks for the named government agencies to keep citizens updated with information about the company and its emissions. 

Most members of the council’s Parks and Environment Committee signed on as co-sponsors to the resolution. Council member Edmund Ford Sr. got the heart of the matter saying the move was “very important because it puts in the air something we don’t want for our people.”

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News The Fly-By

Home Court Advantage

Southeast Memphis resident Carlos Paloma nervously stands before Shelby County environmental court judge Larry Potter in a conference-room-turned-courtroom at the Ridgeway police precinct on a recent Thursday afternoon.

One of the first defendants in Hickory Hill’s new environmental court, Paloma is charged with storing trash under his carport and allowing weeds to grow around a trailer parked in the grass beside his house.

Paloma tells the judge that the mess has been cleaned up. A police officer confirms that the trash and trailer were gone when he patrolled the area that morning. Paloma, however, insists that his roommate was responsible for the charges. Potter tells Paloma that he was ticketed because his name was on the lease.

“As long as you keep the property clean, we won’t have a problem,” Potter says as he dismisses the charges. “But you need to have what we call in the South a ‘come-to-Jesus’ meeting with your roommate.”

Case after case on Thursday’s opening session of the new community court dealt with similar charges: cars parked in yards, loud-music complaints, trash piled in backyards.

“The environmental court deals with a hodgepodge of issues related to quality of life,” says John Cameron, environmental court referee. “We hear state nuisance cases like hotel closures. We hear state charges relating to fishing or hunting without a license. And we hear code violation cases, cruelty to animals and dog-fighting cases.”

Though many of these cases are heard in the environmental courtroom at 201 Poplar, Potter holds community court sessions twice a month in Whitehaven, Frayser, Orange Mound, Millington, Arlington, and Hickory Hill. The Hickory Hill court, which covers all of Southeast Memphis, meets on the second and fourth Thursdays of each month.

“Coming down to 201 Poplar can be an intimidating experience for people,” Cameron says. “We like to go out into the community because we’re not seeking to punish people. We’re just seeking compliance. It’s also easier for the defendants to get in and out because court is being held in their neighborhood.”

A couple of citizen groups in Southeast Memphis — the Southeast Memphis Betterment Association and the Police and Citizen’s Alliance (PACA) — have pushed for a community court in Southeast Memphis since last fall.

“Hickory Hill has such a reputation citywide, and the media identifies anything that happens from Hacks Cross to the airport as Hickory Hill,” says Bob Morgan of PACA. “We have a big reputation to work against.”

Both Morgan and Potter hope that the court will encourage people to keep their yards clean.

“I don’t expect we’ll have Hickory Hill cleaned up this year, and I don’t think we’ll have it completely clean in a couple of years,” Potter says. “But we’re going to work on it one case at a time.”

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News The Fly-By

Death Row Dogs

In the Memphis Animal Services observation hallway, a tick-infested white pit bull is curled into a tight ball at the back of its cage. As a shelter worker approaches, it lifts its bony head, wags its tail, and runs to the front of the cage, as if hoping for salvation. Its ribs protrude from its skinny body, and mottled scars, likely the result of illegal dogfighting, mark its hindquarters.

Thirty-six pit bulls sit in metal cages along the hallway, the area where vicious dogs are held. The public is not allowed in this part of the shelter. In fact, because the dogs are considered dangerous, shelter volunteers aren’t allowed to walk them. Instead, the dogs eat, sleep, urinate, and defecate in their metal cages, which are sprayed down two or three times a day. Many will spend their last days here, eventually put down by a shelter staffer.

On Monday, Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick entered a guilty plea on federal dogfighting charges after police uncovered evidence of the activity on his rural Virginia property. The case has drawn national attention to the issue of dogfighting. Memphis police spokesperson Monique Martin says the illegal sport is a growing problem in Memphis.

“We’re having more people call in and notify police that they have reason to believe dogfighting is occurring at a particular address,” Martin says.

Though not all were involved in dogfighting, the number of pit bulls picked up by animal control officers rose by 22 percent from 2005 to 2006.

Last month, four people were charged after Memphis police busted a dogfight in a South Memphis backyard. Animal control officers took six dogs. Several of the dogs were already injured, and a couple of dog owners were preparing pit bulls to fight in a bloodstained area of the yard.

“The setups here in the city are generally in backyards. They’re not professional-type rings,” Martin says. “Anyplace they choose to fight is well hidden, maybe behind a tall fence. That makes it hard for us to find.”

Confiscated dogs are taken to Memphis Animal Services where they are held in the observation hallway while their owner’s case goes through the court system. If the owner is convicted, the dogs are euthanized.

“We don’t adopt out a pit bull unless it’s a puppy,” says Tony Butler, operations manager for Memphis Animal Services. “A lot of these dogs can’t be rehabilitated. … They’re underweight and covered in scars that breed various infections.”

Donna Velez runs Hearts of Gold Pit Bull Rescue. Though she believes many of the dogs could be rehabilitated, she agrees that there is little chance of finding someone willing to adopt them.

“I don’t see that the shelter has any choice. There aren’t enough good homes that will take in a dog like this,” says Velez. “Even if [the shelter] had a professional temperament tester come in and pick out the very best ones that are wagging their tails, what would we do with them? Where would they go?”

Last week, the City Council passed a “vicious dog ordinance” that sends animal abusers to face stiffer penalties in Judge Larry Potter’s Environmental Court.

The ordinance also requires owners of vicious dogs to spay or neuter their animals. Though dogfighters are often charged under a state ordinance that specifically deals with dogfighting and cockfighting, the city ordinance gives authorities more teeth to convict people who do not properly care for vicious dogs.

“A lot of these dogs that are dangerous and vicious are used for breeding purposes in dogfighting. Now the ordinance says, if your dog is declared dangerous, it has to be spayed or neutered,” says Butler. “You can no longer reproduce these dogs for monetary profit.”

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News The Fly-By

Sign Up, Sign Down

With Election Day a seemingly distant memory, the city is beginning to recover some sense of normalcy. Gone are TV ads about family values and the pipe-dream promises of myriad I-approve-this messages.

But on telephone poles, in empty lots, and on curbside greens, the fight is not over.

The recent election season saw over 20 million campaign signs posted on public property nationwide. For campaigns concerned with putting the signs up, the difficult task now becomes tracking them all down. In addition to being an eyesore, signs that overstay their welcome blur the line between “free speech” and “litter.”

Judge Larry Potter of the Shelby County Environmental Court has overseen over 50 lawsuits against offending candidates, including Bob Corker, Harold Ford Jr., and Phil Bredesen. Cases are still pending against a few fringe candidates who posted signs on street medians.

“These signs are a very real problem during political season,” Potter said. “They are a public nuisance.”

Environmental court does not have any jurisdiction over political signage on private property. The Shelby County zoning ordinance provides that “temporary political campaign or referendum signs including their supporting structures are permitted provided they are erected no longer than 90 days prior to an election and are not placed upon utility poles or within public rights-of-way.”

But according to Larry Jenkins, chief zone and sign inspector for Shelby County Code Enforcement, there is no official timeframe for the signs to be taken down.

This can cause campaigns to get lax in cleaning up the mess, particularly those of losing candidates who used all their money and volunteer power during the race itself.

Potter hopes people know that the court takes these matters seriously. Since January 2005, environmental court has fined over 35 different candidates.

“Fines are based on a per-sign basis. I usually do it on a sliding scale,” says Potter. “We have people that put out 300 or 400 signs at once, and we do get quite serious with them. It all depends on the number of signs.”

The court can assess up to $50 plus court costs per sign, though penalties differ depending on the nature of the signs.