The EPA will issue a proposed rule as early as June rewriting the agency’s existing rule on commercial sterilizers in the wake of two risk assessments that concluded an Illinois-based Sterigenics U.S. LLC facility is the source of elevated ethylene oxide emissions, the agency’s top air official said.
A separate cancer study also reported elevated breast cancer risks near the Willowbrook, Ill., facility, which sterilizes medical equipment.
Environmental Protection Agency Assistant Administrator Bill Wehrum said at a May 29 public meeting in Burr Ridge, Ill. that emissions at the facility require additional regulatory action.
“There are very high ...