Stericycle is one giant step closer to relocating from North Salt Lake to Tooele County.
Utah’s Department of Environmental Quality approved an air quality permit and solid waste permit to Stericycle, a company that incinerates hospital, medical and infectious wastes, according to information provided by the DEQ.
“We are pleased to have received the air and solid waste permit approvals from the State of Utah,” said Stericycle spokeswoman Jennifer Koenig. “With this milestone achieved, we will move forward with the next steps which include detailed site planning and local permits from Tooele County.”
She added that the air and water permits have been approved, but are not final.
“Permits will be considered final after 30 days if no appeal requests have been received by the state,” she said.
Stericycle has proposed moving its medical incineration operation form North Salt Lake to Tooele County 10.7 miles north of Interstate 80’s Exit 77. The proposed incinerator site is on the east side of Rowley Road.
Stericycle’s North Salt Lake facility, which was built in 1989, has been encroached by residential development and has maxed out its capacity, according to Stericycle officials.
Stericycle’s Tooele County facility will be on five developed acres within a 40-acre parcel that Stericycle is negotiating to purchase from the state’s School and Institutional Trust Lands Administration. Koenig was unsure whether the purchase had been finalized.
“We have been working proactively with officials in Tooele County since we identified the parcel of land,” Koenig said. “All permits require a process to complete and we will work diligently through those processes with the county.”
The facility will have two incinerators, doubling the potential for maximum waste to be processed. Stericycle’s new goal is to burn 18,000 tons of waste, up from the 7,000 tons the plant burns at its current location, according to a DEQ fact sheet.
The facility will operate 24 hours per day, and employ 30 people, according to Koenig. Projected cost of construction is $15 million.
Koenig said additional permits from Tooele County include a solid waste permit, a building permit, a road construction permit and a waste water permit. The county already has issued a conditional use permit to the company.
She said the local permit processes and securing the governor’s approval will require at least six to nine months.
“We will continue to move the process forward,” Koenig said. “Once all permits and approvals are received, we estimate it will take three years to construct the facility, install equipment, and validate the operational processes.”
In 2013, the Division of Air Quality issued a Notice of Violation to Stericycle for permit violations that occurred between 2011and 2013 at its North Salt Lake facility, according to John Black, Utah Department of Air Quality environmental engineer. Black answered questions in an article updated Aug. 17 on the DEQ website.
He said the DEQ and Stericycle reached a settlement agreement for the notice of violation in 2014. Terms of the agreement included a total penalty of approximately $2.3 million. However, Stericycle only has to pay about half of that fine if it moves its operation to Tooele County within three years of receiving all of its permits.
Because it is a new source, Black said the proposed plant is subject to more stringent emission and operational requirements under the Clean Air Act’s new source performance standards for hospital, medical and industrial waste incineration than the North Salt Lake facility. The company will have to monitor incinerator emissions around the clock.
Stericycle, based in Lake Forest, Illinois, first approached Tooele County about possibilities of building an incinerator in the county back in 2013. The company has conducted several town hall meetings and public hearings since the proposal. Several groups have pushed for closure of Stericycle North Salt Lake facility over the past decade.
Staff Writer Tim Gillie contributed to this article.
