Council presses Midwest Sterilization after mixed air-monitoring reports; asks company whether it sought federal exemption

Laredo City Council members voted to send a formal inquiry to Midwest Sterilization after hearing that multiple independent air-monitoring efforts detected elevated ethylene oxide concentrations near the company’s plant. Councilmember Vanessa Perez moved the measure and the council approved it by voice vote.

The council took up the item after two outside presentations and comments from local health advocates. Tricia Cortez, representing the Clean Air Coalition, summarized three monitoring efforts that found ETO well above levels that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has identified as a benchmark for cancer risk. “There were concentrations as high as 23 parts per billion,” Cortez said during public comment, referencing a local fence-line study; she contrasted that with the EPA’s cancer-threshold guidance described in technical terms as 11 parts per trillion.

Why it matters: Ethylene oxide is a colorless gas used to sterilize medical equipment. The U.S. EPA and the International Agency for Research on Cancer list ETO as a human carcinogen. The city action aims to clarify whether Midwest applied for a presidential exemption from new EPA sterilizer rules and to learn what interim steps the company is…