The Sterilization Services facility on Florida Street. Credit: Google Maps
A class action lawsuit filed Wednesday claims a group of South Memphis residents have suffered cancer, miscarriages, spinal disorders, and more from toxic emissions from Sterilization Services of Tennessee (SST).
The company uses ethylene oxide (EtO) in its South Memphis facility to sterilize medical equipment. The gas is odorless, colorless, and is a known carcinogen. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently found levels of the chemical around SST were now 20 times above standards for acceptable risk.
The EPA held public meetings in Memphis last year to warn residents but said there was little they could do immediately. However, the EPA issued new rules to reduce EtO emissions in April. But companies like SST would likely have 18 months to comply with them if approved.
The new lawsuit was filed, in part, by New York City-based personal injury firm Napoli Shkolnik. The firm has represented clients in connection with the Flint, Michigan, water crisis and water contamination lawsuits from Camp Lejeune in Jacksonville, North Carolina. J. Luke Sanderson, with Memphis-based Wampler, Carroll, Wilson & Sanderson, will also represent clients in the SST suit here.
The Memphis lawsuit seeks awards for damages, a jury trial, awards for legal fees and litigation costs, and more. It lays out charges on four counts — ultra hazardous activity, gross negligence, negligence, and on charges that label the facility a public and private nuisance.
“As a direct and proximate result of [SST’s] emissions of [EtO] over the course of the last [roughly] 45 years, the South Memphis community has been severely damaged — a manifestation of defendants’ conscious, disregard, and reckless indifference to the human life and health and wellbeing of those in the community,” reads the lawsuit. “[SST] has knowingly admitted this volatile, highly flammable human carcinogen into the air of South Memphis, poisoning many thousands who live, work, go to school, and pray in the surrounding community.”
The suit lists three companies as defendants. SST, its parent company, the Virginia-based Sterilization Services Inc., and their parent company, the publicly traded Altair Engineering Inc.
If the lawsuit is granted class-action certification, the list of plaintiffs could swell. For now, seven living plaintiffs who live or lived in South Memphis near the facility have sued. One of them also sued on behalf of her deceased son.
Anita Albury was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2017, the lawsuit says. She is also suing on behalf of her son, Lenoris Buoy Jr., who was born with a spinal disorder and passed away in 2022. They lived just over a mile from SST.
Morgan Franklin suffered from miscarriages, according to the suit, and lived under two miles from SST from 1984 to 2010. Linda Lane was diagnosed with myeloma in 2005 and lived less than a mile from SST from 1987 to 2007.
Reginae’ Kendrick was diagnosed with brain cancer in 2008 and has lived less than three miles from SST since 2003. Larry Washington was diagnosed with stomach cancer in 1999 and lived less than a mile from the facility from 1980 to 2005.
Everett Walker was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins lymphoma in 1982 and has lived just over two miles from SST since 1976. Beatrice Whitley was diagnosed with leukemia and lived less than three miles from SST from 1977 to 2016, the suit says.
However, a state study of the area earlier this year found no significant cancer clusters.
“This cancer cluster investigation did not provide evidence of increased amounts of leukemia, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, stomach, or breast cancers clustered near the Sterilization Services of Tennessee facility compared to a group of residents away from the facility,” reads the report. “Just because we cannot find evidence of increased rates of cancer that are associated with EtO does not mean there may not be increased risk.”
Lawmakers have urged the company to voluntarily reduce EtO emissions at its South Memphis facility. If it has, the company has yet to announce it publicly. The Shelby County Health Department said in an FAQ that the company has indicated it will make any changes before the new EPA requirements go into effect.
Tennessee’s attorney general pushed back against federal rules to reduce emissions of ethylene oxide (EtO), even though the gas is suspected of increasing cancer risks in South Memphis.
EtO emissions from Sterilization Services of Tennessee in South Memphis could pose a cancer risk to those living in the neighborhood around it, according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
The agency found the gas to be 60 times more toxic than previously believed. The gas is odorless and colorless, and is used at Sterilization Services to clean medial equipment. The EPA wasn’t aware emissions could raise cancer rates until 2016.
However, a recent study of the area around the facility found no cancer clusters. But the study and its results were questioned by some, including the Southern Environmental Law Center.
Many in Memphis have clamored for action in the matter, including the Memphis City Council, which issued a resolution asking the company for help in January. The Shelby County Health Department has said there’s little it can do because the company is in compliance with all laws on EtO emissions.
The EPA issued new rules to rein in EtO emissions in April. Those rules are under review, pending a period of comment from the public.
Tennessee AG Jonathan Skrmetti said Tuesday he’s against the new rules because they would harm the medical device industry.
“These proposed regulations will significantly reduce the nation’s capacity to sterilize medical devices,” Skrmetti said in a statement. “If the [Biden administration] moves forward with this proposal, the shortage of available medical devices will hurt both patients and healthcare professionals.”
Skrmetti led a coalition of 20 other states’ attorneys general in responding to the EPA’s proposed rules. The letter claims EtO is used to sterilize about 20 billion medical devices a year and there are no substitutes.
The new rules would “force the adoption of new, untested technologies to sterilize medical devices.” So, the EPA should do away with the new rules “to avoid disruption to healthcare across the country.”
The government agencies that should be protecting a South Memphis neighborhood from cancer-causing air pollution have fallen down on the job, environmental justice advocates say, so they’re stepping up.
At Shady Grove Missionary Baptist Church church in Mallory Heights on Saturday, June 3rd community organizers with Memphis Community Against Pollution (MCAP) and the Mallory Heights CDC alerted South Memphis residents to the colorless, odorless gas that’s poisoned the area for decades, letting them know what they could do to change that.
The gas comes from a facility two miles away. Sterilization Services of Tennessee (SST) at 2396 Florida Street uses ethylene oxide, also known as EtO, to remove bacteria from medical and dental equipment, which decreases the risks of infections in hospitals and clinics.
But breathing in the chemical over many years, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) now says, can cause illnesses such as leukemia, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, and stomach and breast cancers.
And the SST facility operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
MCAP’s president, Keshaun Pearson, calls the inaction from local leadership inhumane and reflective of racist policies that have plagued his family and community for generations — dating back to the Reconstruction era.
“They continue to slow lynch this community.”
Keshaun Pearson, president of Memphis Community Against Pollution
“They continue to slow lynch this community,” Pearson said. “This is intentional. This is directed at a specific demographic.”
While the EPA has known EtO is a hazardous air pollutant for at least 30 years, scientists and analysts only recently started taking steps to address the carcinogen. The action comes after the agency discovered that EtO has a cancer-causing risk 60 times higher than previously known.
In response, the EPA proposed new regulations requiring facilities such as SST to reduce emissions by 80 percent. Before the regulations become the new standard, the public can submit comments by June 27th. But the standards are in a dense, jargon-laden 68-page packet with 380 supporting documents.
So, MCAP and Mallory Heights CDC — with some of the same players who stopped the Byhalia Pipeline in 2021 — are organizing in-person and virtual meetings to help people in South Memphis understand the proposed new rules.
“We deserve clean air just like everybody else,” said Pearson.
A chance to submit concerns and questions
Eighty-six commercial sterilization facilities operate across the United States, many of which are in communities that were once redlined and now experience environmental injustice. The EPA determined that 23 of those facilities pose elevated lifetime cancer risks, including SST in South Memphis, an area riddled with various industrial facilities and their pollutants.
At the direction of the EPA, the Shelby County Health Department (SCHD) notified an undisclosed number of residents and held one informational meeting, but MCAP is doubling down on the health department’s work. In addition to holding multiple community meetings, the organization sent 11,000 mailers recently to people in the area, encouraging them to submit their concerns and questions.
MCAP is urging people to tell the EPA that it needs a shorter compliance period when new regulations go into place. It’s something the regional EPA air and radiation division director, Caroline Freeman, has emphasized herself because that kind of feedback from people in Memphis can directly influence the agency.
As the EPA’s timeline stands, once this round of public comment closes and the rules are finalized, it could take up to three years for facilities like SST to comply with the new standards. Those standards would update the Clean Air Act to require commercial sterilizers to use technologies and procedures proven to reduce EtO emissions. Concerns raised through public comment could require SST to act sooner to reduce their emissions under such rules.
Concerns raised through public comment could require Sterilization Services of Tennessee to act sooner to reduce their emissions under such rules.
“I need you to hear me on this,” Freeman said in October during the EPA’s first public meeting in Memphis. “EPA does plan to solicit comments on a shorter compliance time period. So, that is why it’s critical you are aware that these rules are coming forward.”
So far, more than 25,000 comments have been submitted.
The EPA is especially concerned about SST’s emissions because a high concentration of the chemical has been released for a long duration. SST has been operating since 1976.
EtO contributes to nearly 82 percent of overall cancer risk in the census tract where the SST facility is located, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists. That level of EtO exposure could mean an increase of 20 cancer cases per 10,000 people exposed for 70 years.
Wind carries EtO, which can stay in the air for up to three months. In Memphis, it can loft over hundreds of homes in a ring of emissions that emanates from the facility. The chemical especially poses risks for children and babies. Their growing bodies make them more susceptible because EtO can mutate and damage DNA.
But because air filtration systems and N-95 masks do not prevent EtO inhalation, people can’t protect themselves or their families from this chemical.
But because air filtration systems and N-95 masks do not prevent EtO inhalation, people can’t protect themselves or their families from this chemical.
Can the health department “do better?”
While zoned industrial in the corner of an I-55 interchange, SST is not an isolated facility. It sits within five miles of more than 130,000 people and about 180 schools and childcare centers, according to the Union of Concerned Scientists report. The community in that same area, it says, is 87 percent people of color and 57 percent low income, both percentages that are 20 percent greater than the county average.
About 86 percent of the EtO emissions coming from SST do not go through a device that breaks down the chemical before it is released into the environment, according to the EPA. In an SST sterilization chamber and aeration room, EtO is dispersed over the medical supplies where the control captures and cleans EtO from the air.
But rather than getting sucked into this cleansing technology, EtO escapes through what the EPA calls fugitive emissions. That means the emissions are possibly emanating through leaks, ventilation, gaps in windows and through open doors. As Freeman said, fugitive emissions are “unfortunately” not covered under current regulations.
But the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), which represents MCAP, claims the facility isn’t in compliance with current EtO federal regulations. The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC) delegated authority to Shelby County Health Department to administer an air pollution control program.
SELC filed a petition with the SCHD, asking it to issue an enforcement provision that allows the health department director to issue emergency air pollution orders, which would address EtO emissions faster than the EPA. In a written statement, the department denied the petition, citing that SST is meeting local standards.
However, under municipal code, an air pollution emergency episode can be declared “during adverse air dispersion conditions that may result in harm to public health or welfare.” Since the Memphis facility is among the most high-risk, and with an improved understanding on the chemical’s harmful impact, SELC and MCAP believe it is within reason for the director to exercise this power. They filed an appeal, asserting that leaders are refusing to act. A hearing is scheduled in August.
“When you know better, you do better, and we’re not seeing that from the facility. We’re not seeing that from the health department.”
Amanda Garcia, Tennessee office director for the Southern Environment Law Center
“This facility has known for many years that its pollution is harming people in the community,” said Amanda Garcia, Tennessee office director for SELC. “When you know better, you do better, and we’re not seeing that from the facility. We’re not seeing that from the health department.”
Sterilization Services has voluntarily reduced EtO at its facilities in other states, but not at its Memphis plant, according to Garcia’s office. SST did not respond to emails requesting comment.
The SCHD was noticeably absent at MCAP’s community meeting earlier this month. U.S Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Memphis) and staff from the office of city council member Edmund Ford, Sr. — both of whom represent the district — attended.
“I’m here because you’re here, and you’re in danger.”
U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Memphis)
“I’m here because you’re here, and you’re in danger,” said Cohen. “This is just unacceptable that our health department has failed us and that this company hasn’t jumped into action.”
Absent data, but some lived experiences
Over the weekend of the Saturday the 3rd, community organizers convened residents who live near SST in preparation for two EPA meetings on last week. Pearson took issue with a March SCHD meeting, in which he and others felt SCHD leaders failed to hold SST accountable for polluting the neighborhood.
“They offered us cards for our comments, and to have our questions listened to, and if you were at that meeting, it didn’t quite go that way,” Pearson said. “They answered the questions that supported the talking points they already had, and that’s just not fair.”
At that meeting, the SCHD presented a study that did not find evidence of increased cancer rates near SST.
But because of other variables such as genetics and socioeconomics, proving environmental causes of cancer is challenging and establishing a link through statistical analysis is unlikely — facts that the health department stressed in its presentation. In fact, when SCHD director Michelle Taylor shared the results, she reminded audience members that the lack of evidence does not diminish the EPA’s EtO warning.
Researchers unaffiliated with government agencies or community organizations have been critical of methodologies used for other local EtO studies — such as an air pollution analysis commissioned by Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland in July 2022. Since there are no government-sanctioned air monitors in South Memphis, the researchers hired by the city set up a temporary sampling site.
The researchers said that over four days of monitoring, EtO was not detected — a finding that comes with many shortcomings, according to researcher Richard Peltier at Institute for Global Health, an interdisciplinary program out of the University of Massachusetts. At the SELC’s request, he reviewed the measurement techniques and argued that it is difficult to draw conclusions through just 62 hours of sampling with variable wind directions.
“The city of Memphis study does not provide useful information about ambient concentrations of ethylene oxide in the community.”
Richard Peltier, University of Massachusett
“The city of Memphis study,” he wrote, “does not provide useful information about ambient concentrations of ethylene oxide in the community.”
Over the last 10 years, study after study has shown that South Memphis disproportionally experiences air pollution with alarming health risks. But community members don’t need the data because they say they are watching it happen to their loved ones.
By combining their lived experiences with new science from the EPA, Pearson believes his communities can push government agencies to reduce EtO and cancer risks quicker than what is currently being proposed.
“…I am so glad my home is in South Memphis, where people continue to fight, and we’ve been fighting a long time,” said Pearson.
New rules issued from the federal government this week could drastically cut hazardous emissions from facilities like Sterilization Services in South Memphis.
The company uses ethylene oxide (EtO) in its Florida Street 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.
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.
Since that meeting, officials with the Shelby County Health Department (SCHD) and the Tennessee Department of Health (TDH) reviewed areas around the company’s facility looking for clusters of cancer. That investigation found no heightened cases of leukemia, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, stomach cancer, and breast cancer.
Local officials said little could be done to mitigate emissions from Sterilization Services since the company was in complete compliance with current EPA rules. In January, the Memphis City Council passed a resolution asking the company to initiate voluntary measures to curb emissions. It’s unclear whether or not it did. Locals said action would only really come with new EPA rules.
Those proposed rules arrived Tuesday and the EPA said they could cut EtO emissions from facilities like Sterilization Services by up to 80 percent.
“EPA’s number-one priority is protecting people’s health and safety, and we are committed to taking decisive action that’s informed by the best available science,” said EPA Administrator Michael S. Regan. “These proposals build on EPA’s extensive outreach to communities across the nation and reflect close coordination among key federal partners. Together, they would significantly reduce worker and community exposure to harmful levels of ethylene oxide.”
The EPA outlined two new proposals for 86 facilities that use EtO to bring emission levels below standards for elevated cancer risk. One would set stricter pollution controls and mandate advanced motoring methods to ensure those controls are working. The facilities would report their findings to the EPA twice a year. If the rules are approved, they would have 18 months to comply.
Another rule would introduce mitigation measures to decrease risks for workers who use EtO. It would outlaw EtO use where alternatives exist in museums, archival settings, beekeeping, the production of some cosmetics, and musical instruments. For companies like Sterilization Services, the new rule would reduce the amount of EtO it could use in sterilizing medical devices and require the use of personal protective equipment.
“This more protective standard proposed by the EPA will significantly lower emissions from Sterilization Services of Tennessee,” said Dr. Michelle Taylor, director and health officer for SCHD. “Once the new EPA rule is in effect, the health department will work with the EPA to enforce the newly adopted standard.”
SCHD has requested a public health assessment and a health consultation from the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) to identify health risks related to EtO and other chemicals in the area surrounding the Sterilization Services facility.
The EPA will host a webinar on the new rules on May 1st at 7 p.m.
For more information on EtO emissions, visit the EPA’s website.
No clusters of major cancers were found in a government investigation of the area around Sterilization Services in South Memphis after health alerts were raised on emissions from the company last year.
The company uses ethylene oxide (EtO) in its Florida Street 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.
Since that meeting, officials with the Shelby County Health Department (SCHD) and the Tennessee Department of Health (TDH) reviewed areas around the company’s facility. Specifically, they were looking for heightened cases of leukemia, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, stomach cancer, and breast cancer.
”This cancer cluster investigation did not provide evidence of increased amounts of leukemia, non-Hodgkins lymphoma, stomach, or breast cancers clustered near the Sterilization Services of Tennessee facility compared to a group of residents away from the facility,” reads the report. “Just because we cannot find evidence of increased rates of cancer that are associated with EtO does not mean there may not be increased risk.”
For the study, health officials compared the area around Sterilization Services to another area far from the facility, basically from Cordova to Eads in eastern Shelby County. To get a better context of any population shifts that may have happened, they also compared data from 2000-2009 and from 2010-2019.
SCHD officials announced the findings of the study this week in a public meeting. SCHD director Dr. Michelle Taylor fielded questions from the a audience and from those watching a live-stream of the meeting. Taylor said the company has been “very cooperative” during the investigation process.
“We’ve never had a problem with them, with our inspectors going in, asking questions, getting information for from them, none of that,” Taylor said. “So, really it is about finding out what the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] is expecting in the way of additional controls and then figuring out and negotiating how quickly that can happen.”
The company has used EtO here since the 1970s. The SCHD has permitted the facility since 1985. The EPA did not begin regulating emissions of EtO until 1994.
The company is now in compliance with all local, state, and federal regulations on emissions. The EPA is working on some rule changes to limit EtO emissions at places like Sterilization Services.
Until then, the company can only be asked to make changes voluntarily, which is what the Memphis City Council asked them to do in a resolution in January. At the time, council member Dr. Jeff Warren said Sterilization Services has facilities across the U.S. and has already enacted emission interventions at some of them.
Citizens asked Taylor this week if the health department could intervene and demand the company to act, even to get them to move.
“If we learned anything from Covid, we know that our authority is limited at the health department,” Taylor said. “Industry is not just regulated by us, it’s regulated by code enforcement, it’s regulated by zoning, it’s regulated by many other divisions that are not the health department. So, when you’re talking about asking an industry to move somewhere else, the short answer is, we as a health department, as a single entity — we just cannot do that alone.”
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.”
