EPA identifies potential cancer-causing air pollutant at South Memphis sterilization facility

The Environmental Protection Agency announced plans to speak with residents of South Memphis and more than 20 other communities that the agency believes are at an increased risk for exposure from a cancer-causing compound.

The compound, ethylene oxide, known as EtO, can be used to make plastic bottles, antifreeze, and in medical sterilization. The Food and Drug Administration has said the compound is currently used to treat about 50% of medical sterilizations.

South Memphis is one of the communities on the EPA’s list, which was based on the organization’s risk assessment. The list, comprising 23 communities, include those at a lifetime cancer risk of 100 in 1 million, meaning if 1 million people lived in the area of the commercial sterilization facility for 70 years and were exposed to the measured levels of EtO for 24 hours a day, 100 people would develop cancer.

Those living in the immediate area face a significantly higher rate at 2,000 in 1 million.

How you can be exposed to EtO

Exposure to EtO usually occurs through the air and short-term, or acute, effects are not common according to the EPA. However, acute exposure could result in headaches, dizziness, nausea, fatigue, coughing, shortness of breath and wheezing. In rare cases, the EPA said vomiting and "other stomach distress" can occur.

Sterilization Services of Tennessee is located at 2396 Florida Street, with residents up to a mile and a half away possibly being exposed to the pollutant.

"Today’s EPA announcement about the possibility of increased risk around facilities that use EtO understandably raises concerns of people that live in the area,” Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland said in a statement. “I will do everything I can to get immediate and definitive testing by EPA of this facility and information to our citizens so that we can understand whether a risk exists and what we can do to mitigate it.”

The City of Memphis commissioned an air quality assessment from Memphis-based Tioga Environmental Consultants to test the air surrounding the facility. A brief report was made publicly available in the press release, but the company would not tell the Commercial Appeal if a more extensive report exists when called for follow-up questions, citing the report's confidential nature.

The brief report, which Strickland said would be sent to the "292 homes in the community just north of the facility," found that EtO could be present for short times surrounding the facility at low concentrations.

"...It appears that ethylene oxide may be present occasionally outside the facility boundary at low concentrations for short periods of time. However, these readings could have been an artifact of the presence of carbon monoxide," the study concluded. "Additional analysis performed using passive dosimeter badges did not identify any detectable ethylene oxide during two days of sampling.

"Because of the cross sensitivity of direct read instrumentation used for this study and because passive dosimeter badges did not record concentrations of ethylene oxide, we cannot definitively conclude that ethylene oxide is or is not present. If they are present, it does not appear that concentrations of ethylene oxide are above levels determined to by harmful by OSHA. However, the sampling was performed 500 feet from the likely source of ethylene oxide and it is possible that the chemical may be present and diluted by the ambient air which would account for intermittent low level readings observed."

Biggest air polluters in Memphis

South Memphis houses Shelby County’s biggest air polluters, many of which are located on President’s Island or immediately across McKellar Lake. Those industries account for a cancer risk up to 1 in 2,400 people according to a ProPublica investigation.

The National Cancer Institute associates EtO most commonly with lymphoma and leukemia diagnoses, but has also found that stomach and breast cancer to be associated with exposure to the compound.

Limits on EtO emissions are not a new territory for the EPA. Limits were first proposed in 1994, but intentions to list it as a hazardous air pollutant took place in 1985. It would not be added officially until 1990, when Amendments to the Clean Air Act were passed.

In 1994, emission standards were set for the three different venting categories, between sterilizer vents, chamber exhausts and aeration rooms. However, the rollout of these regulations hit bumps with the EPA’s title V permitting, which are documents that hold companies accountable for their emissions.

Those permits were constantly deferred for minor emitters, due to what the EPA said in 1996 was “the unnecessary and undue regulatory burden for states and local agencies, the EPA Regional Offices, and the industry during a time when all available resources are necessary for the initial implementation of the title V permit program for major sources.”

Explosions at “several” EtO facilities put a year-long pause on regulations while the EPA investigated whether or not their requirements were in any way responsible for the explosions. In the end, the EPA found the devices used to measure chamber exhaust vent emissions were being “overfed.”

The investigation led to a two-year suspension on regulations for chamber exhaust vent, also known as backvents, EtO emissions, before a 2001 decision to completely strip EtO regulations for emitters of the aforementioned style.

By 2005, the EPA decided to scrap the requirement for title V permits for “nonmajor sources” in five categories, one of which were commercial sterilizers.

Sterilization Services of Tennessee is part of a three-location chain of Sterilization Services, with the other two located in Richmond, Virginia and Atlanta, Georgia. It is the company’s first location, opening in 1976, and is the second largest of the three, at 45,000 square feet.

The EPA will have a meeting for the South Memphis community in October, which can be registered for at this link. A nation-wide meeting is also being hosted Wednesday night, which can be registered for here.

The Shelby County Health Department issued a statement Aug. 3, saying it is "working closely with EPA, Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, Tennessee Department of Health, and the City of Memphis" to prepare for the community meeting. The department's goal is to ensure the affected community receives the information.

Lucas Finton is a news reporter with The Commercial Appeal. He can be reached at Lucas.Finton@commercialappeal.com and followed on Twitter @LucasFinton.

This article originally appeared on Memphis Commercial Appeal: Cancer-causing pollutant, EtO, identified in South Memphis