Your Guide to Emerging Issues in Environmental Regulation and Litigation.
After years of delays – largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic – on April 11, 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency finally issued two proposals that would reduce ethylene oxide (EtO) emissions affecting fence-line communities neighboring EtO sterilization facilities and establish direct protections for facility employees likely to be regularly exposed to this sterilizing chemical. …
Right on the heels of the eye-popping $408 million settlement between a major commercial sterilizer and plaintiffs claiming injuries resulting from exposure to ethylene oxide (EtO) emitted from the company’s Illinois facility (covered by ELM here), the company now faces two different legal actions initiated by two new groups of plaintiffs but similarly stemming from …
Following a study of 100 commercial sterilizer facilities, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced on August 3 it would takes steps to inform communities throughout the country about the risks posed by ethylene oxide (EtO) emissions from 23 of specific sterilizer facilities. The agency further announced that, using data from the same study as well …
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has released new data regarding the concentrations of ethylene oxide, a colorless and carcinogenic gas, found in metropolitan areas throughout the country. That data shows that the highest concentrations can be found in Phoenix, Arizona, followed closely by Chicago, Illinois, Calvert City, Kentucky, and Chester, New Jersey. Ethylene oxide …
Over 30 personal injury lawsuits have been filed against Sterigenics LLC in Cook County, Illinois. The suits are the latest development in the company’s issues arising out of claims its medical equipment cleaning plant emits harmful fumes. Jeanne Hochhalter is one of those suing Sterigenics. She claims that the cancer she developed is directly related …
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has determined that a suburban area in Willowbrook, Illinois is facing a risk of cancer over nine times the national average due to contamination by ethylene oxide. Ethylene oxide has been used for decades as fumigant to sterilize heat-sensitive medical equipment and other goods. The volatile, easily absorbed chemical …
From teeming landfills, choked rivers, and Pacific Ocean garbage gyres, to potential harm to marine and animal life from micro-plastic debris spanning the poles to the deepest part of the oceans, the growing proliferation of plastics is triggering a growing realization that the world has a plastics problem. This is not just an environmental pollution …
The Environmental Protection Agency has increased the total amount of ethanol and biodiesel that must be used in 2019 to 19.88 billion gallons under the Proposed Renewable Fuel Standard for 2019, a 3 percent increase over 2018 levels. Fifteen billion gallons of the blended gasoline will be traditional ethanol, made from crops like corn and …