Bristol Residents for Clean Air (BRCA) today applauded Governor Ned Lamont and Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) Commissioner Katie Dykes for their opposition to the Trump administration’s proposed rollbacks of important EPA regulations—protections forged over decades of bipartisan effort to reduce air pollution and safeguard public health. Yet, while our state leaders rightly denounce the weakening of federal air pollution standards, DEEP is simultaneously poised to permit Reworld, Inc. to exploit loopholes in air pollution standards to burn medical waste in Bristol. BRCA believes that facilitating medical waste incineration under regulatory loopholes is inconsistent with the Governor’s pledge to “to do everything we can as a state to continue to fight to protect our air and our water”.
Reworld Bristol plans to exploit a loophole that allows its facility to remain classified as a “municipal waste combustor” instead of a “medical waste incinerator,” even if it burns large volumes of biomedical material. Under this classification, it is subject to more lenient standards. Connecticut’s own regulations compound this problem with additional gaps that remain unaddressed, despite calls from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2023 to revise state rules to close exemptions that are not in the federal Clean Air Act. DEEP has deflected this criticism, stating that the “timing for such a national solution is ideal,” instead of immediately fixing inadequate rules that could jeopardize public health.
Meanwhile, Bristol’s children suffer from an asthma rate more than twice the national average. Approving medical waste incineration with inadequate emissions standards and no requirement for continuous monitoring of the emissions of the most toxic pollutants – including dioxins and mercury – ignores this health crisis. If we insist that other states do their part to curb pollutants that reach us on the wind, we must demonstrate the same commitment within our own borders. Opposing federal rollbacks rings hollow if in-state emitters are allowed to bypass stricter standards through loopholes that remain in place.
Bristol Residents for Clean Air calls on Governor Lamont and Commissioner Dykes to align their actions with their words by closing Connecticut’s regulatory gaps, holding incinerators to modern emissions controls, and ensuring that future permitting decisions place public health first. We believe Connecticut can live up to its legacy of environmental leadership by setting a consistent, unified standard against pollution, wherever it originates.