Some area officials are finally recovering from the ethylene oxide fog they’ve been in since last summer and are starting to heed the growing concerns of their constituents. Well, they should since some 42,000 Gurnee and Waukegan residents for years have been, and remain, in peril from the cancer-causing toxin.

While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency largely ignored Lake County concerns over ethylene oxide health risks — an odd stance considering a federal military installation, Naval Station Great Lakes, is a few clicks away — state EPA officials have moved ahead. They forced the Sterigenics factory in Willowbrook in DuPage County to halt emitting the chemical into the air.

State environmental folks should now turn their attention to Lake County and the two manufacturing facilities that have spewed ethylene oxide into the atmosphere. Especially since local representatives seem like deer caught in the headlights: They don’t know which way to turn.

Medline Industries has a plant which uses the dangerous chemical to sterilize medical products on Waukegan’s far West Side just east of Fountain Square. Gurnee’s North Side is home to the Vantage Specialty Chemicals facility which also adds the chemical to its production process.

Gurnee and Waukegan residents have stormed their respective municipal halls of late asking, no, demanding their local officials take action — any action — and have the two plants stop emitting ethylene oxide. Until last week, Waukegan officials had a frail grasp of the big picture. Gurnee officials continue to be befuddled.

The two municipalities should start working together on the air-quality issue which has no village or city limits. They need to ante up and split the cost of testing air outside the Medline and Vantage facilities.

The nascent Stop EtO in Lake County organization offered a quote from a testing laboratory to sample air to the Waukegan City Council, according to a front-page News-Sun story last week. Note that ordinary citizens took it upon themselves to research the issue.

The group came up with the testing firm, the same one which took ethylene oxide air samples in Willowbrook with support from elected officials at the village, city and county levels of government in DuPage County. Waukegan officials were told the cost for testing air at five locations over a month would be $43,000. That’s just about a dollar each for every resident in Gurnee and Waukegan impacted by chemical pollution venting from both plants.

Waukegan aldermen seemed receptive to paying for the air samples. Certainly, Gurnee can afford chipping in for half of the cost. Park City and North Chicago might want to ante in.

Also, both communities should start to consider hiring an expert environmental health officer. Who knows what else lurks in the air over Gurnee and Waukegan?

Unlike the U.S. EPA, Illinois environmental officials stopped the DuPage County plant from using ethylene oxide in its manufacturing processes. The company has gone to court and lost in its first attempt at getting judicial approval to reopen.

In its lawsuit, Sterigenics maintained banning the chemical was a hasty action using flawed data, an irrational risk evaluation and is not in the public interest. It would seem breathing non-toxic air also seems to be clearly in the public’s interest.

The county’s federal and state representatives are pushing the U.S. EPA to test the air over and around the Medline and Vantage locations. Yet, as Waukegan resident Christy Diaz told the City Council last week: “We cannot wait for the EPA. We have to take action now…to ensure the protection of our families.”

Waukegan and Gurnee officials should start leading from the front over the noxious ethylene oxide floating above their towns instead of waiting for the feds to finally get out of hibernation.

Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor.

sellenews@gmail.com.

Twitter: @sellenews