Infectious Medical Waste Is Discovered at County Landfill

County health investigators are trying to determine how a dozen plastic bags of potentially dangerous infectious medical waste were dumped with the regular trash from an Oceanside hospital into a North County landfill.

The San Diego County Hazardous Waste Task Force is attempting to learn if employees of Tri-City Medical Center illegally disposed of the infectious debris, which turned up in the San Marcos dump Oct. 27.

Twelve to 14 red plastic bags of medical waste--including tissues such as placentas, surgical instruments and materials from hospital rooms where infectious patients were isolated--was discovered amid the normal trash that arrived in a large dumpster from the hospital.

Leaking Onto Ground

Authorities said none of the infectious material had been properly processed. Law requires that facilities handling more than 220 pounds of medical waste a month incinerate the waste into ash or expose it to steam.

Witnesses said some of the bags were leaking onto the ground, while other plastic sacks had torn open and their contents mixed with regular garbage.

If charges are filed, it will mark the first time in San Diego County that a hospital has run afoul of regulations prohibiting the improper dumping of infectious medical waste.

Officials at Tri-City Medical Center said they have been investigating the incident since they were notified about the bags by the landfill operator the day they turned up in late October.

“To our knowledge, this was an isolated incident,” said Jennifer Velez, a Tri-City spokeswoman. “We don’t have a lot of conclusive evidence, but we’re looking into it.”

Velez said it has yet to be determined “what shift and exactly where the bags came from.”

‘Obviously, We’re Concerned’

Although officials at Tri-City were unaware of the county probe until Monday, hospital administrators plan to cooperate fully with investigators from the task force, Velez said.

“Obviously, we’re very concerned about this matter,” she said. “It’s something we certainly do not want to see occur.”

The episode comes amid questions about another puzzling dumping incident, in which a vial of blood, a syringe and other medical waste washed up onto beaches in La Jolla on Oct. 29 and 30. Al

though a hospital name tag found amid the debris was traced to Tri-City Medical Center, the source of the other material has not been positively identified.

Dan Avera, hazardous-materials chief for the county Health Services Department, said investigators are trying to determine if there is a connection between the two cases but that that possibility so far appears unlikely.

Avera expressed concern that publicity about the task force investigation could jeopardize the probe, which began in earnest only last week.

“To be real honest, we don’t want to have an investigation and a trial going on in the media,” Avera said. “We had hoped to continue on with the investigation without it becoming a media event.”

Donna Blake, a district attorney’s investigator and Hazardous Materials Task Force member, said violations of state laws restricting the dumping of infectious medical waste can result in felony penalties of up to three years in prison and a $100,000 fine for each day of a violation.

State law dictates punishment for anyone who “knowingly transports or causes the transportation of hazardous waste or who reasonably should have known that he or she was causing the transportation of any hazardous waste to a facility that does not have a permit” for disposal.

Although the probe is still in its formative stages, authorities say it seems unlikely that the firm that handles infectious medical waste for the hospital, BFI Medical Waste Systems, bears any responsibility.

Officials with BFI could not be reached for comment late Monday. But the firm’s vice president, Bob Spurgin, said in an interview last week after the waste appeared on La Jolla beaches that there is simply no incentive for BFI to dump illegally.

Spurgin noted that BFI handles more than 400,000 pounds of medical waste in San Diego County alone and has plenty of capacity for more. Also, the firm’s day-to-day operations are tightly regulated, making it improbable that waste would be improperly dumped once BFI picked it up, Spurgin said.

Although county health officials conducted an initial investigation into the episode, the matter was turned over to officials at the hazardous-waste task force “because they have the expertise” to do a law enforcement investigation, Avera said.

The probe is being conducted by Mac McClanahan, a California Highway Patrol investigator and member of the task force, which is made up of representatives from many state and local regulatory and law enforcement agencies. McClanahan was put on the case late last week, officials said.

“There’s a lot to be determined yet,” he said Monday. “It’s still very early in the process. The investigation might be completed very quickly or it might take a couple of months. There’s no telling.”

The bright red medical waste bags, which are about the size of a standard, 40-gallon trash bag, were discovered by employees of a Del Mar environmental research firm conducting a study of San Diego’s garbage and the potential for recycling.

Kevin Contreras, a temporary worker for Recovery Sciences Inc., said he and other employees spotted the bags amid paper and other garbage that bore the markings of Tri-City Medical Center.

“We were just about to sample it, but we ended up skipping that load because we figured it would be too risky,” Contreras said. “We just sort of started getting sick to our stomachs. We weren’t really prepared for this at all.”

The workers notified the landfill operator, and he called Tri-City Medical Center. Two hospital employees arrived about an hour later in a truck, donned protective suits, rubber gloves and mask, then plucked the bags from the trash heap, Contreras said.

“In one instance, they pulled a red bag out, but it had a hole and all the stuff inside had fallen out and mixed in the other garbage,” Contreras said. “Another red bag had a hole that was leaking fluid onto the ground. I’m sure it was just infectious tissue.”

As the two hospital employees worked, a field investigator from the county hazardous-materials division arrived, Contreras said. The investigator took photographs, then began picking through the red bags, documenting what was inside.

Finally, he combed the trash heap, pointing out other potentially infectious materials that needed to be bagged, Contreras said. All the bags were placed in bins in the truck and hauled away, he said.