JUST WHEN medical waste incinerators are going the way of dinosaurs, Baltimore is being stalked by the Tyrannosaurus rex of polluting technologies. The unusual saga of Baltimore's Phoenix Services incinerator - the largest medical waste incinerator in the country - is about to reach a new level of public scrutiny, and the stakes are high for the health of local families.
City Councilman Edward L. Reisinger has introduced an ordinance to reduce the geographic area served by Phoenix from the current 250-mile radius - which includes New York City and other major metropolitan areas along the Eastern seaboard - to eight counties within Maryland.
This is an important first step toward putting the long-embattled incinerator to rest and converting the community to safer non-incineration technologies. Local businessman Samuel K. Himmelrich Jr., who was lauded for integrating green building concepts, has acquired Phoenix with the intention of potentially expanding the incinerator and adding pollution-control devices to make it state of the art.
But this is comparable to sticking a filter on a cigarette and calling it safe. No matter how high-tech, there is no way to stop incinerators from emitting dangerous pollutants such as dioxin and mercury. Medical waste incinerators are a leading source of dioxin - a known human carcinogen that is linked to learning disabilities, intelligence deficits and reproductive problems, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. It says no level of dioxin exposure can be considered safe.
The Phoenix incinerator, situated off Hawkins Point Road in Curtis Bay, is responsible for about 5 percent of the mercury pollution coming from the smokestacks in the state and for contaminating fish in the Chesapeake Bay, according to a recent study by the Maryland Public Interest Research Group. One in eight American women already has enough mercury in her body to pose a risk of neurological damage to a fetus if she were to become pregnant, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has reported.
Incinerators also emit particulate matter linked to asthma, a disease that impacts Baltimore disproportionately, affecting 8 percent to 15 percent of children. At least six studies have shown that children living near incinerators have an elevated occurrence of various respiratory problems.
