The three-month public comment period has begun on the draft environmental impact statement (DEIS) for a new medical waste-management facility at the Cornell College of Veterinary Medicine.

Estimated to cost approximately $6 million and funded by the State University Construction Fund (SUCF), the facility would replace the college's incinerator to treat pathological waste and regulated medical waste, and could begin operation in early 2005.

A public hearing on the DEIS is set for April 10 at 6 p.m. in the Holiday Inn, 222 S. Cayuga St., in Ithaca. The full DEIS document can be read at two locations: the Tompkins County Public Library, 101 E. Green St., Ithaca, and the Flower-Sprecher Library in the veterinary college. A 16-page executive summary is available upon request to this e-mail address: cvmwmf@cornell.edu . Questions and comments about the DEIS can be sent to same e-mail address. Public comments on the DEIS also can be directed to the State University Construction Fund, Office of Design and Construction Management, P.O. Box 1946, Albany, N.Y. 12201-1946 (Attention: Margaret McSorley).

According to the tentative schedule for the project's review and comment process, which must be conducted in legal compliance with the State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR) act, the final environmental impact statement will be ready for public review in May. The facility needs the approval of two New York state agencies, the Department of Health and the Department of Environmental Conservation.

Planners hope the facility can be designed early in 2003, in time to start construction in the spring or summer of that year. The two-part waste-management facility would be located on the site of the college's incinerator, which has been in operation since 1985, on the north side of Schurman Hall. One part of the proposed facility would treat animal remains as large as cows and horses with a new, but proven, technology called alkaline hydrolysis. The process, conducted inside a digester vessel with conditions of extremely high pH, temperature and pressure, reduces animal remains to two fractions: liquid effluent known as hydrolysate, which would be further processed at the Ithaca Area Wastewater Treatment Facility (IAWWTF), as well as "cremains," the ash-like calcium bone fragments that could be trucked to landfills or used as a soil amendment in agricultural fields.

The other part of the proposed facility would treat regulated medical waste, such as test tubes, syringes and infectious animal bedding with steam sterilization -- the technology routinely used in autoclaves to sterilize reusable medical equipment and surgical supplies. The sterilized materials would then be shredded into unrecognizable fragments for shipment to landfills. (Animal bedding that is not infectious would continue to be composted at the university's facility on Stevenson Road.)

At present, all (about 150,000 pounds per year) of the university's regulated medical waste is shipped off campus to a licensed disposal facility. The veterinary college's incinerator handles about 500,000 pounds per year of animal remains (including diseased livestock and deceased family pets) and infectious animal bedding.

An earlier SUCF proposal, to build a high-technology incinerator for both pathological waste and regulated medical waste, met with community opposition based on, among other concerns, the potential for air pollution and the 170-foot height of the smokestack. A committee made up of community members and university staff members spent from 1996 to 1998 studying non-burn alternative technologies and produced recommendations, upon which the proposed waste-treatment facility is based.

The DEIS for the proposed non-burn facility addresses potential positive consequences as well as potential adverse impacts and mitigation measures in several areas: public health, air quality, occupational safety and health, surface water quality and financial resources. Also addressed, as required by the SEQR act, are alternatives to the proposed action, including "no action" (continuing operation of the medical waste incinerator) and combinations of technologies.

Advantages of the proposed two-part system -- alkaline hydrolysis and steam sterilization -- are predicted to include decreased environmental impact, increased protection of public and worker health, enhanced and more reliable treatment performance, increased energy efficiency and decreased costs to taxpayers. An additional advantage -- opportunity for beneficial reuse -- is foreseen by project planners if the more efficient anaerobic (without oxygen) process to treat hydrolysate effluent at the IAWWTF proves feasible. Methane gas generated from the facility's anaerobic treatment system is recovered and used as an energy source for operations at the treatment plant. In addition to further reducing the environmental impact of the proposal, this option also would decrease overall energy use and operating costs.

A pilot test of anaerobic processing is under way at the IAWWTF using hydrolysate that was produced during a previous test run by the veterinary college of a small-scale alkaline hydrolysis system. If anaerobic processing is selected as the method for treating hydrolysate, the effluent would be transported by tanker truck to the treatment facility. Otherwise, if the more conventional aerobic (with oxygen) process is selected, hydrolysate would be sent to the treatment facility via sanitary sewer lines.