After delay, medical waste site digging to resume

Art Nadler and Bill Gang

Tuesday, March 24, 1998 | 9:55 a.m.

NORTH LAS VEGAS -- Scheduled digging at a suspected illegal medical waste site was delayed Monday, due to paperwork formalities and workers' fears of being exposed to infectious materials.

Environmental Technologies of Nevada Inc. refused to continue excavating a 15,625-square-foot yard behind US EnviroMedical Corp., 3890 Walnut St., until it receives a "letter of understanding" from the Clark County Health District granting it permission to store what is thought to be medical waste at its Apex landfill.

So far, a 20-square-foot hole, 15 feet deep has been dug in an area of the yard suspected to contain buried medical and human waste.

Sgt. Mike Rose of the North Las Vegas Police Department said workers also came across what they said were hospital culture dishes that they thought could be infectious. They decided to contact the Environmental Protection Agency, an agency that handles toxic threats to the environment.

"They never needed a letter in the past," Vic Skaar, a Clark County Environmental Health Service supervisor, said. "We had an agreement on Friday that this excavation should continue. I don't understand the concern. There is no threat to the public health. This is not a hazardous waste issue. It's an improper disposal of waste issue."

Four search warrants were served on US Med on Friday for allegedly burying medical waste in its yard. As of Saturday night, 18 dump-truck loads of dirt with what appeared to contain hospital-type medical clothing, blood- and body-fluid-soaked materials and syringes were hauled to a rubber-lined area at the landfill.

Dr. Otto Ravenholt, Clark County chief health officer, said Monday that the letter was being drafted and would be delivered to Environmental Technologies by the end of the day. He said he expected digging to resume Tuesday morning.

Attempts to reach Environmental Technologies for comment were unsuccessful.

Skaar said culture dishes are usually treated before they are disposed of by a medical facility. Nevada, he added, doesn't require that any medical waste be treated before being placed in a landfill.

Silver State Disposal Service, which operates the Apex landfill and whose subsidiary, Environmental Technologies, is handling the cleanup, requires that medical waste be treated, Skaar said.

US Med and Silver State Disposal have been entangled in legal disputes for some time over the handling of medical waste.

A pending lawsuit contends that US Med is encroaching on Silver State's trash business by luring away customers who produce biomedical waste.

The allegations about US Med have become a concern for its hospital customers. At least one, Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center, is planning to fire up its own sterilizing plant to treat biomedical waste.

Concerns began Friday when the hospitals were telephoned by North Las Vegas police and told that US Med was being shut down and other arrangements needed to be made to handle biomedical waste.

Rose said that as excavation of the dumpsite began, he assumed the plant would have to be closed, and he didn't want truckloads of medical waste sitting outside the plant.

While there have been allegations by US Med attorneys that the raid was politically motivated because of its ongoing competition with Environmental Technologies Inc. over medical waste, Rose said it was his call.

"At the time, it was inconceivable to me that they would be allowed to go back into business that day," he said.

But that is what happened by agreement between the Clark County district attorney's office and US Med attorneys.

The Friday deal was brokered by Chief District Judge Myron Leavitt, who said his concern was that the potentially infectious waste be collected and processed.

By that time, the US Med plant had been cleared to operate and only the dumpsite in the storage yard remained at issue.

Sunrise spokesperson Ann Lynch said that because of the telephone call from police and uncertainty about the future, her hospital is again planning to use its own commercial sterilizer to convert hazardous medical waste into harmless trash.

She said the sterilizer hasn't been used since Sunrise contracted with US Med to handle the medical waste, but could begin operation later this week.

"We don't want to be caught in the middle," she said.

Pam Augusta, spokesperson for Valley Hospital, said the call her facility got on Friday was followed a short time later by a call from US Med stating that it was going to remain open.

Rose said his choice was to have ETI join the excavation project or wait several days for a Phoenix environmental waste firm to travel to Las Vegas for the job.

"In the interests of getting the job done quickly, we went with ETI. We didn't have any other alternative," Rose said, noting that US Med's concerns were alleviated by having a neutral environmental firm supervise the project.

US Med attorney Mike Singer said there has been concern that ETI workers could spy on the company's secret decontamination process.

Singer said that because of the animosity between the firms, he hopes Clark County Health District investigators oversee ETI's handling of the material taken from US Med's yard.

The pending lawsuit, filed in February, isn't the company's only legal confrontation.

Singer and John Moran Jr., attorney for Silver State, said that Silver State filed a small-claims action two years ago against US Med over some waste that the firm tried to leave at Silver State's Apex landfill.

Moran said the waste needed to be treated -- and was by ETI -- and the legal action was to recover the $6,000 alleged to have been spent on the processing.

For the past two years, US Med has not been allowed to use the Apex landfill and has had to send its waste by train to Arizona.