Trial will decide first of hundreds of lawsuits alleging pollution from Sterigenics caused cancer, other diseases

When Sue Kamuda moved to Willowbrook during the mid-1980s, she had no idea her new home was a hot spot of cancer-causing air pollution.

By the time she and her neighbors first learned about the pollution in 2018, Kamuda was more than a decade removed from being treated for breast cancer. The fear, sadness and anger she felt after her diagnosis came flooding back, tempered by reminding herself she had survived long enough to retire comfortably and watch her eight grandchildren grow up.

Now Kamuda is the first of more than 700 people seeking retribution from Sterigenics, an Oak Brook-based company that released cancer-causing ethylene oxide into neighborhoods surrounding a Willowbrook facility where the toxic gas was used for decades to sterilize medical devices.

A trial scheduled to begin Thursday in Cook County Circuit Court will revisit a federal investigation that concluded Sterigenics was responsible for long-term cancer risks up to 10 times higher than what is considered acceptable by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Cancer risks remained high in Willowbrook and nearby suburbs despite improvements Sterigenics voluntarily undertook in 2019 to prevent all but one-tenth of 1% of the ethylene oxide it used from escaping into residential areas, the EPA found after monitoring the company’s pollution for several months.

Sterigenics and its corporate predecessors emitted considerably more ethylene oxide when Kamuda became a Willowbrook resident — 169,000 pounds a year in 1987, compared with 4,200 pounds during 2017, according to company documents filed with the EPA.

“They’ve been poisoning us for years and they knew it,” Kamuda told the Chicago Tribune in 2018.

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The EPA investigation concluded that Sterigenics’ pollution increased the risk of developing cancer for people living as far as 25 miles away from the Willowbrook facility. Other suburbs with the highest risks included Darien, Burr Ridge, Hinsdale, Indian Head Park and Western Springs.

Sterigenics closed its Willowbrook plant in 2019 under pressure from community groups, local officials, state lawmakers, members of Congress and Gov. J.B. Pritzker. The company declined to comment about Kamuda’s lawsuit, filed on her behalf by the Chicago-based firm Salvi, Schostok & Pritchard.

Other industrial sources of ethylene oxide continue to legally operate under federal regulations that haven’t been updated to reflect the EPA’s latest assessment of the toxic gas.

In April 2021, the EPA’s inspector general reported that industry-connected political appointees in the Trump administration blocked the agency from investigating ethylene oxide polluters and prevented career staff from warning Americans about the hazards.

The Biden EPA is promising to adopt more stringent limits on pollution from sterilization facilities, including eight still operated by Sterigenics.

Agency officials announced this month they will hold public meetings in nearly two dozen communities where breathing ethylene oxide from sterilizers is responsible for more than 1 case of cancer for every 10,000 people exposed during their lifetime. None are in Illinois.

mhawthorne@chicagotribune.com