GRAND RAPIDS, MI — A medical device manufacturer is facing $110,000 in fines related to emissions of a cancer-causing chemical from a sterilization facility near downtown.

Viant Medical Inc. will pay the fines under a proposed consent order negotiated with the Michigan Department of Enviroment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE), according to pollution enforcement documents.

A public hearing is scheduled next month and EGLE is taking public comment until Oct. 25.

Viant, which operates at 520 Watson St. SW across the river from downtown, sterilizes medical devices using ethylene oxide (EtO). State regulators say the chemical has been escaping the facility at troubling levels through doors and vents as “fugitive emissions.”

Air quality regulators began scrutinizing Viant’s EtO emissions in July 2018 after the chemical was re-classified as a “known carcinogen” based on occupational health studies.

EGLE (formerly the DEQ) issued four pollution violation notices and says computer modeling shows EtO levels in the ambient air at levels high enough to pose a long-term risk. The invisible and odorless gas is known to cause breast and blood cancers, including multiple myeloma, leukemia, Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Disclosure that EtO emissions were found at elevated levels around Viant generated community concern and prompted indoor air testing at the downtown Grand Valley State University Pew Campus. The university said its testing found negligible health risk.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services reviewed cancer data for 10 census tracts around the Viant facility on the city’s West Side but did not find increased illness rates. The state said there was limited exposure information from which to draw conclusions.

Last year, the Kent County Health Department folded Viant into an existing West Side cancer review once environmental regulators began escalating an emissions probe at the facility.

According to a 2018 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency national air toxics report developed using 2014 emissions data, downtown Grand Rapids and much of the city’s West Side between I-196 and the Grand River is at elevated cancer risk due to EtO emissions. Viant’s facility is listed as an EtO source under the name Vention Medical.

In Kent County Census Tract 27 (in which Viant’s facility is located), the cancer risk is 118 per million people. In tract 19, the risk is 81 per million. In tract 20, the risk is 87 per million. The national average is 32 per million. (reference map here).

Viant has disputed EGLE data collection and assessment techniques and has argued there are other EtO sources in the area like car exhaust.

Viant will stop sterilizing devices using EtO at the facility by Dec. 31 and stop using EtO there entirely by Jan. 31, 2020 per U.S. Food & Drug Administration requirements, according to EGLE. The company will continue to sample for EtO through February 2020.

The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the proposed fine amount, which is the result of negotiations between Viant and EGLE. The money would be paid into the state’s general fund.

A public hearing is scheduled at Grand Valley’s Eberhard Center on Oct. 23 at 7:30 p.m., preceded by an informational session at 5:30 p.m.

Public comments can be sent to Jeff Rathbun at RathbunJ1@Michigan.gov, or by mail to the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy; Air Quality Division, P.O. Box 30260, Lansing, MI, 48909.