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Georgia Sues to Close Sterilization Plant [1]
['Brenda Goodman', 'Andy Miller']
Date: 2019-10-22
Brenda Goodman is a senior news writer for WebMD. Andy Miller is editor and CEO of Georgia Health News.
Oct. 22, 2019 -- Georgia is poised to become the second state in the U.S. to force the shutdown of a commercial sterilization facility after air testing found high levels of toxic ethylene oxide gas in nearby neighborhoods.
Late Monday, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr filed a motion for a temporary restraining order against Becton Dickinson, or BD, which sterilizes medical equipment at a plant in Covington, 30 miles east of Atlanta. The motion names Georgia Environmental Protection Division Director Richard Dunn as a plaintiff.
The state’s move -- which seeks to pressure BD to reduce its toxic releases before reopening -- stunned environmental advocates.
Over 2 decades of working on environmental issues in Georgia, “I’ve never seen this happen,” said Kurt Ebersbach, a senior attorney at the Southern Environmental Law Center.
In February, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker sealed a Sterigenics facility in the Chicago suburb of Willowbrook after tests showed high levels of the cancer-causing gas in outdoor air. The state let that facility reopen, but the company’s landlord declined to renew its lease. In response, the company, which had been under intense pressure from local grassroots activists for a year and was the defendant in dozens of lawsuits, said it had made a business decision not to return.
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[1] Url:
https://www.webmd.com/cancer/news/20191022/georgia-sues-to-close-sterilization-plant#:~:text=Oct.,oxide%20gas%20in%20nearby%20neighborhoods.&text=See%20all%20of%20WebMD%20and,News'%20reporting%20on%20this%20issue.
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