Stricter Rules Urged for Infectious Waste

A state commission, pondering what to do about medical trash washing up on Southern California beaches, Tuesday heard calls for tougher controls on disposal of infectious medical waste.

Testifying in Santa Monica before the State Lands Commission, Orange County environmental health director Robert Merryman told of finding dumpsters “literally bleeding” from discarded vials of blood.

And Ed Manning, deputy city attorney for Santa Monica, told of city sanitation workers being “stuck with used needles” and addicts rummaging through trash for improperly discarded syringes.

The hearing, the first of three to be held by the commission, was a response to headline-grabbing reports of medical debris coming ashore on Orange and San Diego county beaches in late October and November. The lands commission, a three-member panel chaired by State Controller Gray Davis, does not regulate waste disposal but administers millions of acres of tide and submerged lands along the California coast.

Although much smaller in magnitude, the dumping episodes recalled last summer’s fouling of East Coast beaches by medical trash. The Navy took responsibility for some of that but has denied there is evidence it is to blame here. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and other agencies are continuing to investigate.

Merryman said that, along with syringes and gloves, some items recovered from Orange County beaches were clearly military in origin. He said there was a technical manual for a defense system on Navy ships, and vials of germicidal chemicals used for decontamination in biological war. A spokesman for Heal the Bay, an environmental group concerned about pollution of Santa Monica Bay, also told the commission that a container of the military antiseptic was found near a storm drain along the Santa Monica beach.

“It appears very much that it (the waste) came from the Navy,” Merryman said.

But Cmdr. Ron Wildermuth, a Navy spokesman based in San Diego, said the origin of the waste is an open question. He said the materials could have come from non-Navy military installations, Veterans Administration hospitals or even civilian hospitals with military contracts.

Navy rules traditionally required that infectious waste be steam sterilized before being dumped overboard in weighted containers at least 50 miles offshore, Wildermuth said. But he said that under an October decree, infectious waste is to be brought ashore and disposed of on land unless this poses an “unacceptable nuisance” or impedes combat readiness. He said the order was issued before the recent medical-waste incidents off Southern California.

Wildermuth said bringing infectious waste ashore has long been the normal practice of vessels operating off the West Coast, because their time at sea is short.

Asked by Davis whether the waste could have been dumped overboard without authorization, Wildermuth replied, “Anything is possible, sir.”

None of the beached waste was shown to be infectious, but several witnesses said that underscores a weakness in the law.

Improper disposal of infectious waste can be prosecuted as a toxic-waste violation, punishable by heavy fines and jail time, if living disease-causing organisms are present. Often, these bacteria or viruses have died by the time the waste is discovered. The improper dumping can still be punished, but with lesser penalties, under solid-waste laws.

Merryman and Manning called for passage of a bill introduced last week by Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) that would set stiff penalties for improper disposal of certain classes of medical waste without proof they are infectious.

But Dr. Lee Cottrell, chairman of the California Medical Assn.’s environmental health committee, sounded a cautionary note. He said infectious agents have a tough time surviving, much less infecting anyone, when dumped in the sea or anywhere else.