Oakland Tribune

July 14th, 2001

For more information, contact:

Bradley Angel Greenaction

(415) 248-5010

E. Oakland firm can burn medical waste again

By Laura Casey
STAFF WRITER

OAKLAND -- State health officials have ended the one-month suspension of a controversial East Oakland medical waste disposal center's operations, allowing the company to accept more waste under a probationary permit.

Officials said the company, Integrated Environmental Systems, has burned and shipped away the hundreds of barrels of illegally stored waste that prompted the Department of Health Services to take punitive action. The company also has made management, staffing and operational changes.

"They've put together a better way of managing waste as it flows through their facility," said Jack McGurk, chief of the department's environmental management branch.

IES, the state's only commercial medical waste incinerator, came under health department scrutiny in May when inspectors found medical waste improperly stored for weeks. The company allegedly violated the Medical Waste Management Act, which requires waste more than 7 days old to be stored at freezing temperatures.

The company was supposed to give state officials a plan to handle the situation by late May and fix it shortly thereafter. But inspectors found the issue unresolved in early June.

Officials ordered IES to stop accepting waste for a month and to get rid of barrels of soiled bandages, surgery specimens, scalpels, needles and syringes.

The company complied and will now be in close contact with the Department of Health Services during the 90-day permit period, officials said.

"It gives us a chance to ensure that they are going to be operating effectively and efficiently," McGurk said. The company's health department permit expires in 2002, and McGurk said its recent troubles will be considered in the renewal process.

Calls to IES were not returned.

IES is allowed to process 22.8 tons of medical waste per day under a 1992 department permit renewed in 1997. Its incinerators have been operating since 1977 and their emissions have been the subject of intense debate.

Under permit guidelines, IES can burn 2,000 pounds of medical waste per hour in its incinerators, and up to 900 pounds per hour in its microwave unit. Environmental and community groups want the incinerators permanently closed because the smoke they emit contains pollutants, including cancer-linked dioxins.

IES's Title V permit -- a federally required certificate issued by the Bay Area Quality Management District -- is up for renewal, and many of the company's loudest opponents would like it denied.

Bradley Angel, executive director of the San Francisco-based environmental group Greenaction, said the recent health department violation is proof that IES cannot be trusted to operate safely.

"They violated their permit, they violated state law, they violated their cease-and-desist order, they violated their compliance agreement," he said.

"We believe that shows a reckless disregard for public health and the law, and that should be more than enough reason to deny the permit."

He promised his group and others will hold nonviolent protests at the site in the near future.