Medline’s Waukegan facility has resumed the use of ethylene oxide, a cancer-causing chemical that the state cracked down on last year after three companies were found to be emitting it into surrounding neighborhoods.
The company, which uses ethylene oxide to sterilize medical equipment, issued the announcement Friday afternoon, saying that its new “state-of-the-art emissions control equipment” had been certified by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency as required by the new state law.
The Illinois EPA confirmed in a separate news release that the company had successfully completed the testing required to be in compliance with the new Matt Haller Act.
The Haller Act is named for a 45-year-old Willowbrook resident who died of stomach cancer last year after living about a mile from Sterigenics, another sterilizer that had been located in Willowbrook before it permanently closed. Haller had been an outspoken critic of the facility and had called for its closure.
(Zbigniew Bzdak/Chicago Tribune).
The testing of the Medline facility, which began Feb. 12, was conducted by a third-party contractor while the Illinois EPA was on site to monitor, according to the agency. The full test reports are available online on the Illinois EPA webpage dedicated to ethylene oxide.
Medline, which stopped its sterilization operations in mid-December because it could not meet the new requirements, was not allowed to resume its operations until the process is complete. A company spokesman said the company had continued to make the surgical kits it produces at the site but had a third party sterilize them.
The reopening comes amid the state’s fight to contain the novel coronavirus. Illinois remains under at stay-at-home order.
Medline said in a news release the Waukegan plant will play “an immediate and direct role in supporting health care professionals battling the coronavirus at medical facilities across Illinois” in addition to its routine sterilization of surgical packs.
The upgrades to the Waukegan facility carried a price tag of about $10 million, according to Medline.
The company was required to install several new emission controls, place the building under negative air pressure and route all emissions through control devices as part of the Illinois EPA construction permit approved last year.
The permit also caps annual emissions from the facility at 150 pounds compared to the 3,159 pounds it had reported for 2018, according to the IEPA. Medline will have to conduct annual testing of its continuous emissions monitoring system and stack emissions.
State officials have touted the new regulations at “the nation’s most stringent.”
Ambient air testing that had been underway by the Lake County Health Department, village of Gurnee and city of Waukegan is expected to resume once Medline is again fully operational, officials have said.
