The Pima County Department of Environmental Quality issued an air quality permit to Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD) in May to operate the 140,000 square foot facility at 7345 E. Valencia Road near South Kolb Road.to use the facility ethylene oxideis a colorless, highly flammable gas classified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as a human carcinogen for sterilizing medical devices.

Several local government officials and community members have expressed concern about the hazards posed by unmonitored ethylene oxide emissions from the use of materials at sites adjacent to Davis-Monthan Air Force Base and Amazon’s distribution facilities. .

In January 2022, the Council passed a motion put forward by Steve Kozaczyk against building a facility over the use of ethylene oxide and the uncertainty of transporting the chemical throughout Tucson. The city sent sent a letter to BD informing them that the Tucson fire would not be welcome in Tucson without a risk assessment demonstrating that it could adequately respond to a catastrophic event.

BD spokesperson Troy Kirkpatrick said the backlash was not the reason the company stopped using ethylene oxide in Tucson, but rather that “Tucson makes sense as a location for additional capacity for electron beam technology.”

Also known as electron beam technology, the process uses a stream of high-energy electrons to break the DNA strands of microorganisms and sterilize equipment within the package.

Kirkpatrick said in an email: “We plan to build a new (ethylene oxide) sterilization facility in a location with a higher concentration of multiple BD manufacturing facilities. We have not announced a location, but we can confirm that it is not in Arizona.”

Construction on the ethylene oxide facility was originally scheduled to begin in the summer of 2022, but Kirkpatrick estimates that the new electron beam facility is likely to be built in 2023.

A new air quality permit from the county would be required because the process “has various pollutant emissions, including ozone and nitrogen oxides,” according to the county memo. However, until BD applies for new permits, it’s unclear exactly how the process will work or how contaminants will be contained.

County environmental departments are legally required to issue air quality permits to businesses that meet certain federal and state standards. Under previous permits, BD could not emit more than 709 pounds of ethylene oxide per year, and he claims it has control measures to remove 99.95% of the gas.

Kozachik specifically mentions events such as the February 14 nitric acid spill from a truck rollover on Interstate 10 near Colbrod and the February 3 Ohio train derailment. Given that, he said he sees the change as “a win for the community.” Released vinyl chloride into surrounding communities.

“All of them show that communities across the country, including Tucson, are unprepared to deal with the environmental impact of a significant chemical spill,” said a member of the council. If an overshoot happens, it’s not just a hypothesis, because this happens in the real world, how do you control it?”

In a March 21 briefing to the City Council on the nitric acid spill, City Attorney Mike Rankin said that while local governments have limited authority over the transportation of toxic chemicals within their jurisdiction, Tucson is not allowing the Federal Transportation Administration to do so. It said it had petitioned to specify acceptable routes of movement for ethylene oxide. In anticipation of BD using large amounts of chemicals in the city.

“It looks like we’ve been able to gain the ability to designate acceptable travel routes or truck routes for[ethylene oxide],” Rankin told the council. , is not a process that allows us to obtain general authority across the city.”

Although the city’s transit route designation is tied to a specific substance, Kozachik is encouraged by the federal government’s ability to respond and the potential for future local control over the transport of toxic substances.

“I think we have shown that not just for the city of Tucson, but for every other jurisdiction in the country, we need to petition the federal government and let local governments in whenever there is toxic material passing through our jurisdiction. has its seat at the table,” he said. “By raising that flag, I think we have served the rest of the country.”