EPA Halts Use of Certain Pollution Control Equipment

In a move that comes after explosions rocked four plants across the nation in the past two months, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has suspended an order requiring companies to install a type of air pollution equipment.

EPA officials suspect that the equipment, which heats and destroys a toxic substance called ethylene oxide, may be to blame for explosions or fires at industries in Indiana, Virginia, Massachusetts and Wisconsin. One person was killed and 69 workers were injured in a June 24 explosion and fireball in Elkhart, Ind.

“We got word about two weeks ago that there had been explosions in one or two--then as many as four--facilities that had put the control equipment on,” said Jeff Clark, director of policy analysis at the EPA’s Office of Air Quality. “There is clearly the potential of something serious going on.”

More than 100 companies--medical and pharmaceutical firms, food fumigators and other businesses that sterilize products--would have been required by December to begin operating the pollution control systems.

Many businesses are already using the potentially dangerous systems, and the EPA is advising them to immediately cease.

Officials at the California Air Resources Board said Thursday they know of six large sites in California--four of them in Los Angeles County--and are trying to determine if there are more.

“We don’t believe there are any other facilities operating, but we’re doing a complete inventory now,” said Air Resources Board spokesman Jerry Martin.

EPA officials believe that it is the first time that explosions or other serious safety problems have been linked to devices designed to curtail air pollution.

“We’re looking at the circumstances, looking for patterns, and we’re getting all that information back now,” Clark said. “It may be some type of malfunction, we just don’t know.” The emission systems destroy 94% of the ethylene oxide fumes released by the plants. Ethylene oxide, an extremely flammable chemical, has been linked to leukemia and other cancers, so its use has faced increasingly stringent environmental controls.

The EPA extended its December deadline for at least one year while an investigation is conducted. The equipment, known as a thermal oxidizer, is manufactured by three different companies.

Among the Southern California businesses using the equipment is Pacesetter Inc. in Sylmar. One of the largest pacemaker manufacturers in the country, it has operated the emission-control system since 1989 and has no plans to shut it down despite the EPA warnings.

“Our folks believe they are veterans at this. They are monitoring the equipment, they’ve had no problem, and they continue to operate it as before,” said Peter Gove, a spokesman for St. Jude Medical Inc., which owns Pacesetter. “Until there’s some correlation with the particular control technology that they have used, they see no need to shut it down.”

Gove said Pacesetter doesn’t want to shut off the equipment because toxic fumes used to sterilize its pacemakers would then be vented into the community. The Pacesetter technicians suspect that the explosions occurred at plants that recently installed the systems and were far less experienced than operators in California, which has stronger air pollution rules.

Officials at other companies, including Griffith Micro Science in Los Angeles, expressed surprise Thursday, saying they were unaware of the possible safety threat.

“We’re confident in our equipment we have here,” said Andrew Randolph, plant manager at the company, who said it has been used for several years. He said the company, which also operates a plant in Ontario, will explore the problems to see if the systems should be shut down.

Allergan Inc. also had not been notified by the EPA.

“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” said Jim Messelbeck, vice president of environmental health and safety at Allergan, which uses ethylene oxide to sterilize surgical kits at a plant in Lenoir, N.C.

Messelbeck said Allergan has experienced no serious safety problems with the equipment, which the company voluntarily installed to reduce toxic emissions.

“There are good control features and direct reading instruments to allow us to monitor how the system is behaving. I don’t see the need to make any changes right now, but we will take a very close look at it,” he said. “It’s something we’ll definitely talk to the manufacturer about.”

No information was available Thursday from four California companies that reportedly use the equipment. The president of Parter Medical Products in Carson declined to comment, and executives from Botanicals International in Long Beach and Isomedix in Temecula did not return phone calls.

Information on the cause of the fires is preliminary because they “are so recent and traumatic,” a group representing the sterilization industry said in a letter sent a week ago to its members.

So far, one of the four explosions has been blamed on the emission controls, and evidence suggests they may be involved in two of the others, according to the Ethylene Oxide Sterilization Assn., based in Washington, D.C.

“This sort of incident is rare, and a cluster of them could be suggestive of some common cause,” J.E. Hadley, the sterilization group’s general counsel, said in the letter. The industry group and EPA officials are also exploring anecdotal information that other explosions have occurred.

In the 1980s, ethylene oxide ranked as one of the top chemicals produced in the United States. But many companies, especially in California, have stopped using it because of anti-toxics laws.

California has its own, more stringent rule, which required hospitals, veterinary clinics and other businesses to virtually eliminate ethylene oxide emissions by 1992. Hospitals that used the compound then turned to contractors such as Griffith Micro Science in Los Angeles to sterilize products. As a result, the pollution equipment is found at only a small number of large, regional companies.

“From what we’ve found, we believe there are no small facilities, such as hospitals, left” that use the equipment, Martin said.

Martin said California plants use computerized systems that may be less likely to explode.