Johns Hopkins plans to divert medical waste from South Baltimore incinerator amid pollution concerns

Johns Hopkins Hospital and Johns Hopkins University plan to divert the small amount of medical waste that they send to an incinerator in South Baltimore, after state environmental officials flagged continuing pollution violations at the facility.

Within the next 30 to 60 days, the institutions plan to make the switch, said Bob McLean, Hopkins’ vice president of facilities, during a Baltimore City Council hearing Wednesday on the topic.

About a week ago, the Maryland Department of the Environment filed an air pollution lawsuit against the Curtis Bay Energy incinerator, which is the largest medical waste incinerator in the United States. It’s located in Hawkins Point, across Curtis Creek from the Curtis Bay neighborhood.

The suit described several instances this year when thick black smoke was seen flowing from the incinerator’s roof vents rather than its smokestack, which is supposed to treat the smoke for health-harming pollutants such as dioxins before it exits the facility.

In 2023, the facility also repeatedly exceeded its daily emissions limits for hydrogen chloride and carbon monoxide, according to its self-reported data, the suit stated.

The suit represents the latest legal trouble for Curtis Bay Energy, which agreed last year to pay one of the largest fines in an environmental criminal case in Maryland history, $1.75 million. Some plant staff members also faced charges in the case, which focused on inadequate burning of medical waste. Such waste should incinerated to a fine ash, but instead was partially burned.

The amount of waste flowing into the facility was increasing, as were its profits, according to that lawsuit. Those violations in that case pre-dated the facility’s new owner, private equity firm Aurora Capital Partners, which purchased it in 2021.

“Like others, we were upset and disappointed to learn about the actions of Curtis Bay Energy staff that led to the original guilty plea,” Hopkins’ McLean said at Wednesday’s hearing, “and equally alarmed by the most recent lawsuit. This is certainly not what we expect from companies we do business with.”

In written testimony provided to the city council, Curtis Bay Energy said it had spent $1.2 million “and counting” on equipment and services to correct air emissions issues.

“The press releases and news headlines have been loud and understandably unflinching,” read its testimony. “But what has gone unreported is that [Curtis Bay Energy] had effectively self-reported the violations to the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) and had already corrected a majority of them.”

“The more recent ‘smoke events’ have continued to be a challenge,” the company said. “The company is currently working with outside firms to deploy additional and more substantial technology solutions to ensure they don’t occur at all.”

Johns Hopkins Hospital and Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center send less than 1% of their medical waste to that incinerator, McClean said. Hopkins believes it can send that fraction to “other types of treatment facilities,” McLean said.

Other options for handling medical waste include autoclave machines, which use pressurized steam to decontaminate medical waste or equipment, and ozone sterilization facilities.

Johns Hopkins University, which generates a “limited” amount of medical waste, sends 27% of it to the Hawkins Point incinerator, McLean said. Officials believe they can divert all but 1% of that waste, “using other technologies,” McLean said.

Megan Christin, a university spokesperson, said the school is looking for an appropriate alternative for that 1%.

“We intend to end all dealings with Curtis Bay Energy,” she said.

MedStar Health, which operates seven Maryland hospitals and several hundred smaller centers, plans to continue sending waste to Curtis Bay Energy, according to remarks shared at Wednesday’s council hearing.

“After careful consideration, MedStar determined that Curtis Bay, under new ownership, with commitments to capital for improvements in technology and processes, and supplemental environmental projects, responded satisfactorily to the violations,” said Rachel DeMunda, the hospital system’s corporate director of environmental health and safety and sustainability.

Using a local medical waste incinerator is beneficial for the health system because of logistics and cost, said DeMunda, adding that it reduces carbon emissions associated with transporting the waste.

DeMunda said the hospital system is working to reduce the amount of medical waste it produces that must be sent to incinerators or autoclaves, but some waste must be incinerated, so the category can’t be eliminated altogether, she said.

MedStar’s decision frustrated some Curtis Bay community advocates, who were buoyed by the Hopkins commitment.

“To hear the fact that they basically are OK with it? …. It makes no sense,” said David Jones, a board member of the Community of Curtis Bay Association.

After they noticed the thick black smoke coming from the incinerator in January, Curtis Bay residents and community advocates started monitoring the facility. With the help of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health researchers, they set up a camera near the incinerator Feb. 21.

In the first 21 days of filming, the camera caught 27 instances of black smoke rising from the facility, said Christopher Heaney, an associate professor in the Bloomberg school’s environmental health and engineering department. On average, the smoke events lasted about 40 minutes, Heaney said.

The community association and the nonprofit South Baltimore Community Land Trust have called on all local medical institutions to stop doing business with the incinerator, and for state officials to close down the facility.

“I don’t know what more evidence you need to really hold violators accountable, but the pattern showed is that: No matter who was owning or operating this facility, they were still violating,” said Meleny Thomas, the Land Trust’s executive director and a community association board member.

During Wednesday’s hearing, the community groups urged the Baltimore City Council to take action as well. They cited a 1997 law passed by the council that allowed the facility to accept waste from cities within 250 miles. Previously, the facility had been limited to receiving trash from a handful of Maryland counties.

But the city’s law department cast doubt Wednesday on the council’s ability to change that law, citing interstate commerce provisions of the U.S. Constitution, and a 2020 court ruling against the city.

That court ruling invalidated a 2019 ordinance passed by the city council, which tried to limit air emissions from incinerators, and was challenged by the city’s trash incinerator and Curtis Bay Energy. A federal judge ruled that the city’s ordinance “second guesse[d]” state and federal rules on air pollution.