EPA Ordered Sterigenics Info Kept Under Wraps: Inspector General

WILLOWBROOK, IL — Political appointees in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ordered staff to keep under wraps information about pollution from the Sterigenics plant in Willowbrook, according to a new government report.

The EPA also restricted the ability of its staff in working to correct the problem, the report said.

On Thursday, the EPA's inspector general released the results of its investigation, which detailed the agency's efforts with Sterigenics over the last few years.

After the pollution came to the public's attention, Sterigenics closed following more than three decades of releasing ethylene oxide, which is labeled a cancer-causing pollutant.

In June 2018, the EPA's Region 5 administrator was briefed on the agency's monitoring of Sterigenics' ethylene oxide emissions, according to the inspector general's report. The administrator wanted to immediately release the data to avoid another public health crisis like the one with Flint, Michigan's drinking water.

Employees were directed to prepare a webpage with the monitoring results, but a political appointee with EPA's Office of Air and Radiation delayed the release, saying previous information from 2014 had not been divulged publicly.

On Aug. 22, 2018, the EPA released the 2014 results to the public. At the same time, Region 5 posted information to its webpage with background information about ethylene oxide and the 2018 monitoring results showing ethylene oxide concentrations and the health impacts from exposure to it. It also detailed the efforts dealing with the problem at Sterigenics and documents related to the company.

About an hour after the information was posted, the then-deputy assistant administrator for the EPA's Office of Air and Radiation ordered it taken down because it was not similar to a page for a Louisiana facility, according to the report.

After the webpage was taken down, all that remained were the 2018 monitoring results and a link to an agency letter, the report said.

For the report, the inspector general's investigators examined the page that was taken down and found it was similar to the current page for the Louisiana facility.

"The EPA did not act consistently with its mission or guidance on risk communication because it delayed informing the Willowbrook community about the results from the May 2018 short-term monitoring around the Sterigenics facility," the report said.

The inspector general also said the EPA's Office of Air and Radiation instructed Region 5 not to conduct ethylene oxide inspections unless invited to do so by the state.

Region 5 employees told a state agency and a local agency about the instruction. Within a day, these agencies emailed Region 5 that it wanted the EPA's help, the report said.

Administrators in Region 6, which includes the Louisiana facility, never received an instruction to wait to inspect plants until they got a state's invitation, according to the report.

The inspector general also said the political appointees ordered Region 5 to hold off on sending official Clean Air Act letters to Sterigenics and other facilities. That led to delays in the EPA obtaining critical information to further evaluate cancer risks attributed to ethylene oxide emissions, according to the report.

The main activities in question occurred during President Donald Trump's time. The 2014 data that had been kept under wraps was compiled during President Barack Obama's administration.

The inspector general's report was issued during President Joe Biden's third month in office, though the investigation started two years earlier while Trump was president. The inspector general is Sean O'Donnell, who took office Jan. 27, seven days after Biden was inaugurated.

In a statement Wednesday, state Sen. John Curran, R-Woodridge, said the report demonstrated the EPA's gross negligence." He said it was "unconscionable" that a deliberate decision was made to keep the monitoring information under wraps.

The audit "details a complete lack of policy requirements and protocols that help ensure the public is notified in a timely manner when a potential health risk is identified at an ethylene oxide-emitting facility," Curran said. "The people of Willowbrook should have been able to rely on the US EPA and Sterigenics to be good community partners and forthright with critical health-related information.

"Instead, the US EPA's gross negligence and ultimate disregard for sharing critical information was a direct attempt to cover up this environmental disaster," Curran said.