A pair of operating permit applications filed by Stericycle indicate the medical waste handler hopes to obtain state permission to more than double the size of its incineration operation when it moves to Tooele County.
The applications request permission to accept and process up to 18,000 tons of solid waste per year at Stericycle’s future Rowley incineration plant, a 137 percent increase over the roughly 7,600 tons the company’s North Salt Lake incinerator is currently permitted to process annually.
The solid waste application calls for the construction and operation of two medical waste incinerators that would operate 24 hours a day, seven days a week, at a potential maximum capacity of 4,100 pounds of waste every hour, or about 50 tons per day.
The current permit allows a single medical waste incinerator to operate with a capacity of 1,850 pounds per hour, or 24 tons per day.
The materials Stericycle would be permitted to accept and incinerate remain the same under the new proposal. The Rowley incinerator would continue to process medical wastes such as trace chemotherapy waste, tissues and body fluids from both animals and humans, other wastes contaminated by body fluids or tissues, such as sharps and various containers, and other potentially infectious materials.
The facility would not be permitted to accept hazardous chemicals, radioactive waste, cadavers or recognizable fetal remains, or explosives.
A separate application for an air quality permit would allow the proposed Rowley plant to emit 38 tons of criteria air pollutants on an annual basis, plus 2 tons of specially-categorized hazardous pollutants.
Criteria pollutants include PM2.5, the small particulates responsible for the Wasatch Front’s winter inversion woes, as well as volatile organic compounds that play a significant role in the formation of PM2.5 in Northern Utah.
Hazardous pollutants include substances of specific concern to human health, including dioxins and heavy metals.
A full report of air emissions Stericycle is currently permitted to release at its North Salt Lake was unavailable as of press time.
Jewel Allen, founder of the online advocacy group Tooele County Concern Citizens — a group initially formed to oppose the relocation of Stericycle to Tooele County — said she was surprised and dismayed by the requested increases.
The current North Salt Lake capacity was the baseline county citizens used to evaluate the company’s proposed relocation when Stericycle came to Tooele County to request a conditional use permit, Allen said. She said that the increase, which she felt was not discussed last year during the conditional use process, made her wonder whether expansion was the company’s unstated goal all along.
In light of this winter’s settlement with the state, which allows Stericycle to waive half of a $2.3 million fine for a 2013 permit violation if the company successfully relocates to Tooele County in the next three years, Allen said the requested increases seemed to add insult to injury for Tooele residents.
“The settlement was the first slap in the face, and this just rubs salt in the wounds,” she said.
But Jennifer Koenig, vice president of corporate communications for Stericycle, said the company did not plan to expand its operation when it moves to Tooele County. The requests made in the permit applications are simply projections of growth and hoped-for improvements to Stericycle’s business model, she said.
For example, building two incinerators instead of one will not only expand Stericycle’s maximum capacity should demand for medical waste disposal increase in the future, but will also allow the incineration plant to operate without disruption, Koenig said.
Stericycle currently shuts down its North Salt Lake plant on a periodic interval to allow for regularly scheduled maintenance. Having two incinerators available at the same site will allow for continuous operation during maintenance, she said.
Removing those regular disruptions alone could increase Stericycle’s potential capacity by nearly 3,000 tons per year.
Tooele County Commissioner Shawn Milne said he believes the applications reflected Stericycle’s projections of growth, not an intention to expand operations immediately upon moving to Tooele County.
He said Stericycle contacted the county commission back in November to inform them that they planned to apply for a much larger capacity in anticipation of future growth. He said they also indicated their interest in operating an autoclave — a sterilization device that uses high-pressure steam to neutralize biohazards — at the Rowley location.
While Milne said he felt it was typical for most businesses, not just heavy industry, to apply for permits that allow for future growth, he said the county commission has decided to wait to see how the state responds to Stericycle’s requests.
“We have deferred to the state,” he said. “This is their specialty.”
He also said residents with concerns or questions are welcome to contact him as the county commission decides how to proceed.
The solid waste and air quality permit applications, both of which were filed with the state on Feb. 26 but made available to the public on Monday, are currently undergoing internal review at the Utah Department of Environmental Quality, said Donna Spangler, a spokeswoman for the department.
She said it was possible the state environmental engineers would modify either proposed permit. Then, as the requested permits move forward, the Department of Environmental Quality will hold a public hearing and electronic public comment period before making a final decision on whether to approve the requests.
Spangler said there is currently no schedule set for the public comment period, because the pending internal review may take a month or more to complete.
Meanwhile, Stericycle still has some regulatory hoops, such as obtaining a water quality permit, that it must clear before it can break ground at the Rowley site, which is located about 20 miles northwest of Grantsville.
Stericycle obtained a conditional use permit from the Tooele County Planning Commission at that site last July. The medical waste handler began pursuing relocation to Tooele County in late 2013, after residents of the North Salt Lake neighborhood that surrounds the current incinerator began to protest when the news broke that the facility had violated its state air quality permit earlier that year.
Stericycle has temporarily postponed talks with Tooele County regarding the mitigation fees it will pay to operate at the Rowley site. However, Milne has repeatedly indicated that the county will charge mitigation fees, as well as impose a steep schedule of fines for permit violations, with the intention of discouraging the company from violating operating permits in the future.