A medical waste transportation company in Nesquehoning is working to obtain a permit to begin processing waste on-site.

On Monday evening, representatives from Bio-Haz Solutions, which is located off Tonoli Road along Route 54 between Lake Hauto and the Hauto Valley Estates in the borough, met with officials from the state Department of Environmental Protection and members of the community to discuss the proposal for adding a processing facility at the current location.Gregory Haas of Carbon Engineering, who is serving as the civil engineer for the project, and David Henritzy, owner of Bio-Haz, outlined the plans as the first step in the permitting process.About the companyBio-Haz Solutions is a company that was founded in 1995 in the Lehighton areas by Henritzy, who is a lifelong resident of Carbon County.It currently serves as a medical waste transportation company throughout the state and in parts of Maryland and Virginia, and employs 15 people and serves approximately 4,000 customers, picking up medical waste from doctors offices, nursing homes, hospitals, veterinarian offices and other medical facilities.If the plans go through, the company will expand to approximately 30 jobs at the site and operate 16 hours a day, five days a week.Henritzy explained that he chose the Nesquehoning site because it met the company's needs, which included three-phase electricity, water and sewage.Proposed plansThe proposed plans for the site call for building a 50-by-54-foot addition onto the existing building for the installation of two medical waste treatment units, improving access and paved parking areas.Haas said that the building would house Clean Waste Systems OMW-1000 machines to process and purify the medical waste before transporting it to a municipal landfill for disposal.Henritzy said he took ownership of the building in 2014.Henritzy has already gone before the Nesquehoning Planning Commission, and the plan has been reviewed by the Carbon County Planning Commission.The county planning commission voted to recommend that the project for the addition onto the building receive conditional plan approval.During that meeting, county planner Ivan Meixell said there were some areas that needed to be addressed, and pointed out that the southern property perimeter fence line is encroaching on adjoining property owned by Carbon County, and this encroachment was previously pointed out in February 2013.A special exception permit was granted to the company to operate the facility in 2013 with the provision that the company provide screening as required by the borough zoning ordinance.Last month, the Nesquehoning Planning Commission tabled the plans until Bio-Haz Solutions can create a corrective action plan as stipulated by 2013 zoning hearing board and planning commission decisions.Those decisions provided conditional approval for the plan as long as the company plants arborvitae along the property facing Route 54 and installs slats in the fence to help hide the property.ProcessingWaste that is expected to be processed at the Tonoli Road site is regulated medical waste, Henritzy said, meaning injection needles and medical waste found in doctors offices and other medical facilities, as well as nursing homes or veterinarian offices.The Clean Waste System, Henritzy said, uses ozone through a process called HumidiZone to purify the materials.The medical waste comes in containerized either in reusable plastic containers or bagged and boxed for transport.The waste is then trucked into and put into a cart, which is pushed into the Clean Waste System machine.From there, according to Clean Waste System's step-by-step description of the process, the only step humans have to take after loading a cart into the machine is to push the start button. Once that button is pushed, the cart filled with waste is hoisted, weighed and dumped into the system.All items are then shredded into small particles and ozone is pumped into the container to begin the purification process.The shredded materials are transferred into a sealed treatment bin where it is again treated to ensure sterilization, the brochure says, before being hauled to a municipal landfill for disposal.Members of the community asked where the final product is taken for disposal, and Henritzy said that he contracts with Waste Management, which uses a landfill in Pen Argyl.Roger Bellas, environmental program manager for DEP, said that any landfill could receive this waste as long as the appropriate paperwork is provided.Community concernsA handful of borough residents attended the meeting and asked questions of the process.Irene Genther questioned if any chemical process would be used in the ozone purification process.Henritzy said there would not be.She also questioned how would Bio-Haz ensure that bacteria from the waste had been killed and if testing would be done to make sure."The ozone kills the bacteria, and testing shows 99.9 percent efficiency," Haas said, noting that these results were provided to DEP as part of Clean Waste System's application to have the ozone system approved for use in Pennsylvania. DEP issued a general permit so this process is now able to be used in the state.Bellas said if a permit for the facility is issued, there would be periodic testing to make sure the process is working properly and killing the possibly harmful bacteria and the company would continually need to log their processing. Spot inspections by DEP would also take place at the site to make sure the company can demonstrate the effectiveness of the process is continuing.Henritzy said that the ozone process is used in the food industry already and was just recently perfected for use in the treatment of medical waste.Genther also questioned if the area would be at risk in the event of a crash while transporting medical waste.Henritzy said that there is a slight chance but procedures are in place in the event something like that happens, and noted that in the 20 years he has been in business, he has not had that happen.Jeff Spaide, environmental engineer manager for DEP, told Genther that medical waste is a "highly regulated industry."It's being shipped on roadways every day," he said.David and Renee DeMelfi questioned the air quality as a result of increased truck traffic through the area to the processing location, as well as the exhaust from the ozone process.Henritzy said that no exhaust would be released into the atmosphere from the process because it is all self-contained; and truck traffic would possibly be an additional 10 to 15 box trucks.David DeMelfi also asked about the safety of the employees, to which Henritzy said personal protective equipment would be used to ensure employees are not contaminated in the event a container is compromised.