More Medical Waste Found; Earlier Items Are Traced to Military

As more medical waste washed up on San Diego beaches Wednesday, local health officials said they have traced three discarded intravenous bags found earlier in the week to a military supply depot somewhere in California.

The three bags were among medical supplies purchased by the U.S. Defense Department from a Deerfield, Ill., company and sent to the California depot in 1986, said Gary Stephany, deputy director of the San Diego County Department of Environmental Health.

At a press conference, Stephany said the supply depot was located in a town called Lyoth. But later in the day, his office said no such town exists and that the health department was trying to pinpoint the location of the facility.

Stronger Military Link

Stephany said, however, that it is going to be “awfully tough” to determine which branch of the military ultimately ordered the fluids before the bags were discarded. “But until we get to a dead end, we’re not at a dead end,” he said.

Tracing the bags to the supply depot strengthens the link between the waste and the military. A packet of camouflage bandages found on a beach Tuesday were traced to a lot sold to the military from a New York manufacturer in 1984.

In addition, Stephany said a container of oxalic acid found Monday bore a 12-digit federal stock number. He said the Navy has said that oxalic acid, used as a cleaner, is stocked on only one ship--the Missouri--but that there is no evidence it was dumped from the ship, which has been 200 to 400 miles out to sea except for a brief docking in Long Beach.

Meanwhile, county health officials Wednesday continued to pick up medical wastes from Oceanside to Imperial Beach.

Two syringes with needles were among the refuse collected from Carlsbad State Park, while the Oceanside shoreline yielded orange crystals found in a sealed glass vial. Both batches came ashore Tuesday, but were picked up by the health department Wednesday.

In Del Mar, beach-goers Wednesday found five ampules of a liquid and one tablet, while a tube of yellow liquid and a wash swab were found near Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla.

Caught in High Tide

Pills reportedly found in Imperial Beach were yet to be examined by health officials, while medical wastes stretching from Torrey Pines to Del Mar were caught up in high tide and will not be picked up for inspection until today, a health official said.

The recent influx of wastes began Oct. 29, when a vial of blood, a hypodermic syringe with attached needle and a patient’s wristband washed up on Black’s Beach. Since then, according to a health department list, 15 additional batches of waste have turned up on the shorelines--11 of them since Monday.

To dramatize the situation, county Supervisor Susan Golding and health officials Wednesday called a press conference and laid out the objects recovered so far on a table in the Board of Supervisors’ meeting room in the County Administration Building.

They also had a map showing that, over the past year, medical wastes have also been reported in San Marcos, Vista, the Miramar landfill and various inland locations around San Diego.

Golding underscored the need for an emergency ordinance she has proposed to close a loophole in state regulations that allow doctors’ offices and smaller clinics to escape regulation if they produce less than 220 pounds of medical discards a month. Anything under that amount, current regulations hold, can be tossed out with the regular trash in garbage bins.

Hospitals and other institutions producing more than 220 pounds a month must abide by regulations that require the potentially infectious medical wastes to be incinerated, or sterilized and stored in red bags before being hauled away to a special dump site by a hazardous-waste contractor.

Golding wants to close the loophole and extend those regulations to every medical office, even if it produces only a pound of waste. She also wants to broaden the definition of infectious waste to include blood and urine specimens thrown into the trash.