Community members and legal experts will host a press conference this coming Tuesday, September 20 in Laredo, TX to discuss advocacy plans in response to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) inaction on regulating ethylene oxide (EtO) emissions from commercial sterilizers. EtO is one of the most toxic air pollutants regulated by the EPA.
The 11 a.m. conference will meet on the steps of City Hall facing Houston Street.
EtO is a colorless, typically odorless flammable gas that is used to make other chemicals and plastic, and to sterilize medical equipment. It is an aggressive, DNA-damaging carcinogen that is especially harmful when inhaled over the course of many years. Vulnerable communities, like Laredo, continue to be exposed to ethylene oxide while they wait for EPA to enact stronger standards, increasing their risks of cancer as each day passes.
Last month, the EPA released a list of 23 high risk facilities across the country, including Midwest Sterilization Corp. which has operated in Laredo since 2005. A ProPublica investigation reported the estimated lifetime cancer risk for nearly half of Laredo’s residents to at least 1 in 100,000 and more than 37,000 of those are children. In Laredo, 10 schools rank in the top 1% of all schools in the U.S. for “Air Toxics in Schools,” according to research conducted by the University of Massachusetts. The EPA reports that ethylene oxide is 60 times more toxic than previously estimated and children are more sensitive to exposure as they grow.
