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How Hazardous Is This Waste?
Bid to process med waste draws one neighborhood's ire
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Business New Haven
3/23/1998
By: Linda Mele
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Not in my back yard” is the operative phrase when neighborhoods and communities decided they don't want prisons, landfills, junkyards, strip joints, dumps or anything else they find objectionable located nearby.
That attitude is being applied to a waste-transportation facility in Fair Haven that has been operating out of its 46 River Street facility for 27 years without an incident to jeopardize anyone or anything in the neighborhood.
The Tuchmann family has operated Bechem Transportation Inc., a hazardous and chemical waste transportation company, out of the site for years. Three years ago, Alan Tuchmann and his wife Jill decided they wanted to expand the business to include managing some of the 3,350-plus tons of infectious waste generated in the state every year.
Medwaste Management Inc. of New England began hauling material from throughout Connecticut to River Street and then rehauling it to out-of-state disposal facilities, since Connecticut doesn't have any. It was exactly the sort of operation Bechem had been involved in for nearly three decades.
Jill Tuchmann, the company's director of sales and marketing, says boxes of waste designated as infectious - already sealed in heavy three-mil plastic bags and sturdy corrugated boxes - are picked up and returned to the River Street facility. Within 24 hours (48 on weekends) they are shipped to a processing facility out of state.
“None of the boxes are dripping or leaking or anything like that,” she says.
It was when the Tuchmanns decided to take advantage of the latest technology to process the waste at the site (it would be shredded and sterilized) rather than ship it out that all the NIMBY folks came out of the woodwork claiming the processed waste might somehow contaminate the neighborhood. Neighborhood aldermen joined the opposition and petitions against the proposal were prepared and circulated.
Experts and the Tuchmanns say chances of contaminating anything are nil because the bags of waste are never opened, and once they've been processed the resulting material is unrecognizable and cleaner than the trash everyone puts out at the curb every week because it's sterile. It also is reduced in volume by as much as 20 percent compared to when it was dumped into the machine and there's no run-off, no release into the ground or the sewer system and nothing being released into the air.
According to state DEP officials, the company is licensed to transport medical waste, but not to operate a transfer station, which involves off-loading from one vehicle onto another for reshipping to another location.
The Tuchmanns were cited in April 1997 for doing just that without a proper permit and, according to DEP Supervising Environmental Analyst Thomas Pregman, subsequent inspections revealed no further violations. No agency action was deemed necessary.
If they get the processing permit, they won't need a transfer station permit, Pregman says.
Because of the opposition, the state DEP has scheduled a public hearing for April 13 at 7 p.m. at the New Haven Free Public Library on Elm Street, according to DEP project manager Laura VanBuren.
VanBuren says the process is about as safe as it gets.
Edwin Negroni, a Fair Haven resident and community leader, said he doesn't understand what all the fuss is.
“I heard so many different stories about what they were doing,” Negroni says, “like there were body parts lying around. I went to see for myself, and none of it was true.”
Tuchmann says body parts are considered pathological waste, are handled separately and Medwaste doesn't transport that material.
“When so many companies are leaving the neighborhood and jobs are being lost, I don't understand why everyone opposes it,” Negroni says.
According to Tuchmann, the new process would generate about 30 new jobs right away as well as accompanying local and state taxes.
She says Medwaste isn't the problem - it's the solution.
We're not generating the waste,” Tuchmann says. “All we do now is transport it and all we want to do is process it. We can't wish it away, and it's not going to evaporate into thin air or go away on its own.
“We've made a commitment to New Haven and instead of being opposed we should be applauded,” she adds. “Where others have fled the city and the state, we're staying, want to invest $2 million in technology and generate jobs.”
All of which raises several questions:
• Don't the parties that generate the waste (New Haven's two major hospitals alone produce nearly 500 tons of it each year) have a responsibility to properly dispose of it?
• Shouldn't companies that want to invest in the city, generate jobs and are doing nothing that is harmful to people or the environment be supported, not opposed?
• Why should other states (like Rhode Island and Pennsylvania where the waste is currently trucked) bear the responsibility to dispose of Connecticut's medical waste?
Perhaps some of the answers will come to light at the public hearing.
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