Monday, March 13, 2000
Medical waste unwanted
Sanitec proposal has critics
BY KRISTINA GOETZ
The Cincinnati Enquirer
WALTON — Residents fighting to keep a medical waste facility out of Boone County say they don't want the area to become a dumping ground for other people's trash.
A citizen's group is organizing to oppose a permit for Sanitec of Kentucky. The company wants to build a facility that would shred, disinfect and reduce the volume of medical waste it treats.
“Boone County's map location should not correlate into Boone County becoming the dumping ground for Sanitec's ... clients' waste,” Brandon Voelker, an attorney for the residents, said in a letter to Boone Fiscal Court.
Mr. Voelker wrote to Boone County Judge-executive Gary Moore asking fiscal court to consider the implications of the issue, even though fiscal court is not involved because no zone change is being sought.
The area south of Florence on East Frogtown Road already zoned Industrial-1.
But the company soon will go before the Board of Adjustments for a public hearing on a conditional-use permit. The company already has received a permit from Boone County Emergency Management.
Company officials say plans include importing medical waste — IV bags, needles and soiled clothes — from neighboring states and Lexington, Louisville and Frankfort. Officials say Boone County is a good location because it's in a strategic area near major cities.
“What has to be recognized is that Boone County is growing,” said Bob Jennings, a spokesman for Sanitec. “Major facilities are being built there because of its tremendous location.
“Boone County is growing because it's a logical place to put businesses.”
The citizen's group argues that importing waste from other cities and states is contrary to resolutions passed by Boone, Kenton and Campbell counties that adopted the Northern Kentucky Solid Waste Management Plan update.
The joint resolutions set an agenda for implementing solid-waste reduction and management.
Residents also are concerned about potential health hazards caused from contact with stray needles falling on the street or in parking lots.
“There's lots of wildlife in the area,” said Steve Turner, a resident who lives on Frogtown Road.
Mr. Jennings tried to calm those fears.
“The waste will be transported in lockable, sealed containers in a locked, sealed, single-axle delivery van,” he said. “There is no chance for anything to be spilled.”
Not all community members think the facility is a bad idea.
Amy Ewing, director of shared services for the Greater Cincinnati Health Council — a not-for-profit trade association made up of about 75 hospital and long-term care facility members — said the competition would be welcomed.
“To bring in another viable player would be helpful,” she said.
The council's medical waste task force has met sev eral times to discuss alternatives to incineration, a process that many medical facilities in Greater Cincinnati choose as the method to dispose of their medical waste. The nearest incineration facility is in Warren, Ohio.
“We're concerned that incineration might not be around forever,” Ms. Ewing said. “We're looking at alternatives.”
Autoclave — a process that sterilizes by superheated steam under pressure — also is available. Some area hospitals choose that method, but the nearest facility is in Beaver Dam, Ky.
Sanitec's method shreds the material, treats it with steam and then microwaves it repeatedly before it's shipped off to a landfill. The process reduces the waste to 20 percent of its original volume.
The parent company, Sanitec International Holdings, has 70 similar facilities around the world.
“The biggest part of the cost is transportation,” Ms. Ewing said. “But members are more concerned about doing it the right way.
“They have to keep cost in mind, but this is not the case where you go with the cheapest thing out there.”
Nate Sturm, solid waste coordinator for the Northern Kentucky Area Development District, said he isn't concerned about the additional waste that would be hauled in from other places.
It's not unusual for states to swap trash, he said.
The three Northern Kentucky counties, for example, exported 54,000 tons of trash in 1999. Compared with the 750 tons of trash Northern Kentuckians produce per day, the additional amount from Sanitec wouldn't make much difference, Mr. Sturm said.
Sanitec would treat a maximum of 12.5 tons of waste per day, Mr. Jennings said, but what eventually ends up at the Bavarian landfill in Boone County would be only 20 percent of that.
“Six days a week at full capacity would only be 780 tons (a year),” Mr. Sturm said. “That's really not very much.”
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