The cancer causing agent is ethylene oxide and it has been used at Viant Medical to sterilize medical instruments, and while the company tested the air surrounding and found low levels of the chemical -- the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, also known as Egle, conducted tests of their own and found that the company was the main source of the area’s high emissions of ethylene oxide.
“That was the main pollutant of concern was ethylene oxide which is a known carcinogen and that’s why we became concern about the elevated levels there and we had to figure out what exactly was going and how it was affecting the communities.”
That’s Jennifer Dixon from Egle. She says that due to Viant’s air quality violations a voluntary legal settlement is in order. However, for some residents that isn’t enough.
For several decades, Kari Johnson and her family owned a home on Indiana Avenue and Wealthy Street, also the area where Viant used the chemicals. Having lost over ten family members to cancer, Johnson was hoping a cancer study of the area conducted by the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services would bring her some answers;
“We just decided to start looking for answers, and asking questions, and asking for testing to see whats going on because it was no coincidence.”
But the cancer study found that there was no connection between an increase in cancers cancers related to breathing ethylene oxide and the area’s elevated chemical levels.
“It was frustrating because we felt that it was a huge letdown. We already had seen this information and knew that something is tying us together. There’s more going on.”
The community is invited to give comment on the consent order on October 23 at the Eberhard Center at Grand Valley State University from 5:30pm-9pm. If the agreement is approved Viant will stop using ethylene oxide and pay a fine of $110,000 dollars.
Michelle Jokisch Polo, WGVU News.
