A company released toxic gas in Tampa Bay for years. No one stopped it

The nondescript building near a quiet bend of the Hillsborough River started spewing toxic gas about a decade ago.Inside, workers cleaned medical tools by placing them in bags with a chemical called ethylene oxide, known to cause cancer. Slowly, the gas vented from the bags and out through the ceiling.Colorless, odorless, it drifted invisibly over Temple Terrace — one of Tampa’s closest neighbors.As early as 2019, regulators discovered American Contract Systems, the company that released the gas, had used more than one ton a year — a dangerous volume it could have almost completely absorbed and eliminated with filters. But the company failed to take those added precautions, a Tampa Bay Times investigation has found, and federal, state and local officials didn’t require the plant to curb its emissions.Gas continued to seep from the building.For years, no one told Temple Terrace residents about the danger.Now, at least 20 people who lived or worked close to the site say they are battling illnesses ranging from breast cancer to leukemia. In a string of lawsuits, residents blame American Contract Systems and BayCare, the nonprofit hospital chain that owns the building and hired the firm to clean its equipment. Lawyers for both have moved to dismiss cases against them.Tim McKeehan, a lifelong resident of the area, said he was diagnosed with lymphoma in 2023. He only learned about the sterilizer operation recently from a neighbor who also has cancer.“It’d be nice to be aware of the fact that you’ve got some place that could potentially be pumping carcinogens in the air,” McKeehan, 63, said. “Next thing you know, you’re hooked to an IV.”American Contract Systems and environmental officials responded slowly to evidence of ethylene oxide’s heightened threat, according to interviews, hundreds of regulatory documents and court records. Vague rules and poor communication left the plant’s neighbors exposed and in the dark.A parent company for American Contract Systems declined an interview request, but a spokesperson said it was committed “to upholding the highest environmental and health standards for our teammates and the communities where we live and work.” The business disputed any assertions that it acted irresponsibly when using ethylene oxide.A BayCare spokesperson said the local hospital chain is “taking these allegations very seriously,” and the health of the community is its first priority.Neither commented on specific details, and BayCare cited a policy not to speak publicly about pending litigation. Air inspectors for local and state environmental agencies said they did the best they could to oversee the operation under old federal standards that limited their ability to require tighter pollution controls. State regulators twice asked the federal government for more clarity about applying rules to plants like the one in Temple Terrace. A spokesperson for the Environmental Protection Agency said it doesn’t “comment on potential or ongoing enforcement matters.”After research revealed elevated risks from ethylene oxide in 2016, the EPA vowed to reduce emissions nationwide. That effort soon became slow and disjointed, the Times found.The agency didn’t include the Temple Terrace site in an initial list of the nation’s riskiest sterilizers. If the EPA had done so, it could have triggered public disclosures in the community as early as 2018.Federal regulators acknowledged to the Times in an email that they underestimated cancer risks around the plant: The danger in the immediate area was as much as 40 times higher. The agency told the Times its first assessment in 2022 was wrong because American Contract Systems indicated it had installed pollution filters.But it hadn’t. Filters that could have better protected residents sat tucked in a corner of the building behind cardboard boxes, photographs taken by local inspectors show. The equipment wasn’t put to use until the end of July 2023.American Contract Systems said it never misled federal regulators. The company and the EPA didn’t provide records to support their claims.When EPA officials finally notified the Temple Terrace community about the gas during a virtual town hall in the summer of 2023, they didn’t mince words. “I want to leave you with the following: The risk in Temple Terrace is high, and EPA is concerned about that risk,” Jeaneanne Gettle, then head of the agency’s southeast region, told the audience. “We are taking this issue seriously.”City officials were caught off guard. The mayor wrote in emails to residents that he found out at the same time as them. The city manager urged the state to shut down the plant until it was safer.American Contract Systems kept operating for more than two years after installing filters but neglected to clean or replace them before getting fined by local regulators, records show. The company abandoned the site in December. A spokesperson declined to say why it shut down.Before closing the Temple Terrace plant and a sister site in Fort Myers, the company faced a slew of lawsuits from residents across Florida and other states. Tougher federal regulations were also on the way. But this March, the Trump administration moved to roll back stricter pollution controls for the country’s roughly 90 sterilizer plants.Residents are left to reckon with dire prognoses and steep medical bills while trying to understand the Temple Terrace plant’s impact on their health.It’s difficult to track a cancer diagnosis to any one cause, experts say. Near Tampa, regulators estimated emissions but didn’t sample the outside air to determine exactly how much gas polluted the community. Most scientific research about the effects of gas exposure is limited to the impacts on workers inside a plant — not a nearby neighborhood or surrounding city.McKeehan, who lived his whole life on the same block 3 miles from the building, remembers water skiing the river as a kid, back when few boats traversed the stretch of waterfront above the dam. That was long before American Contract Systems showed up a decade ago.Ever since he was diagnosed, McKeehan has puzzled over how he could get so sick after years of healthy eating and exercise. “How in the hell do I have this?” he said.He’d had no idea the plant was even there.“When I learned of this, it was a light bulb moment,” McKeehan said. “This could potentially be the answer to the question I’ve been asking.”Ethylene oxide is a paradox in the world of healthcare: a key ingredient in keeping life-saving equipment clean, but also a dangerous pollutant that can make people sick.The chemical is known to cause breast cancer, lymphocytic leukemia, non-Hodgkin lymphoma and myeloma, according to the EPA . Research shows that workers who spend their careers handling the gas inside a plant have a higher risk of developing cancer . But long-term threats to people living near a plant haven’t been studied as closely.Inhaling high doses over a short time can cause dizziness, nausea and breathing issues. Congress designated it a hazardous air pollutant in 1990.But the U.S. Food and Drug Administration estimates that more than 20 billion medical devices sold in the U.S. every year — from surgical masks and gloves to pacemakers — are sterilized with ethylene oxide. Experts have for years suggested alternatives, including a less toxic steam process and vaporized hydrogen peroxide.Ethylene oxide remains popular because it’s highly effective and cheap to manufacture .It’s risky for the same reason it’s effective, said Richard Peltier, a leading ethylene oxide expert and professor of environmental health sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. The chemical easily kills unwanted bacteria, but it also mutates human DNA.“And that’s the pathway that causes us to become sick,” Peltier said.After exposure to the gas for a long period, he said, “eventually, your luck is going to run out.”In 2016, the same year a permit shows the Temple Terrace sterilizer plant opened, federal scientists found ethylene oxide was 30 times more toxic for adults and 60 times more toxic for children than previously thought.The risk is especially high for kids, who have faster metabolisms and take more breaths than adults. Children can live with compromised health for years before serious illnesses emerge, Peltier said.Ethylene oxide levels typically aren’t concentrated enough to make someone sick if they just pass through an area, according to the EPA.Across the country, the often unassuming exteriors of sterilization sites can fly under the radar in residential areas. Neighbors wouldn’t know from a glance that the plants are releasing a toxic chemical around homes, schools and parks. In Temple Terrace, the main sign on the building at 7802 East Telecom Parkway only said BayCare.American Contract Systems started using ethylene oxide in a commercial stretch off Waters Avenue in 2010, permitting records show. Six years later, it moved to BayCare’s 250,000-square-foot Temple Terrace medical equipment center.Sharing a roof with BayCare meant the company could more easily sterilize and ship packages that contained tools like scalpels and syringes for the nonprofit hospital chain that oversaw nearly 95,000 outpatient surgeries in 2024.But it also meant moving close to homes and releasing tons of the toxic cleaning agent near 178,000 people living within 5 miles, an EPA webpage shows. Nearly a third of households make less than $50,000 a year, and two-thirds of residents in that zone are people of color, according to the EPA .Minnesota-based American Contract Systems continued handling the sterilization operation. BayCare shared a roof and acted as a landlord.The company received medical equipment from BayCare and packaged it in plastic bags in an assembly room. Fewer than three dozen employees used machines to inject the bags with what federal regulators called “a small amount” of ethylene oxide — less than an ounce.The bags sat in heated rooms for at least 64 hours. Gas was released through vents in the roof, according to an inspection report reviewed by the Times. After another two days, the sterilized kits were shipped to hospitals.During inspections, local regulators noted the process seemed streamlined and safe. A maze of shiny silver piping and gauges clung to sleek white walls.“Everything was state-of-the-art, new,” said Janet Lorton, executive director of the Hillsborough Environmental Protection Commission, in an interview. “No one makes that investment if they aren’t going to meet regulations.”Local regulators were on the front line of oversight for the plant. Though the EPA has broad rulemaking authority over emissions of ethylene oxide, it delegates responsibilities to states, which task local agencies with conducting random inspections and issuing fines.Efforts to tighten oversight of the nation’s sterilizer plants ramped up in 2018 — two years after the Temple Terrace plant opened and federal researchers found the gas was more toxic than previously thought. Federal officials began notifying state and local regulators about the new findings.But they didn’t move fast enough, records and interviews show. The EPA failed to alert more than a dozen communities across the country near plants considered “high risk” — a public warning so delayed that it drew criticism from the agency’s own inspector general.The Temple Terrace operation wasn’t even on the list, nor was a plant operated by American Contract Systems in Fort Myers . A few other sterilization plants in Florida, run by different companies, had controls to limit pollution, according to documents.At the time, the EPA estimated the risks of people getting cancer around the Temple Terrace site weren’t high enough to trigger alarm.But that would change. In 2023, regulators devised a different map based on the discovery that American Contract Systems still hadn’t installed pollution filters, which could have absorbed most of the chemical through a porous screen before it left the building.The map showed blocks of the city under a blue blob where the agency estimated the gas had spread. Regulators said people living in those areas were at an elevated risk of cancer.In the worst spot, a tight circle including several homes beside the building, the threat was up to 40 times greater than for those living farther out.The Temple Terrace plant slipped through regulatory gaps for years, the Times found, allowing operators to release tons of ethylene oxide without repercussions.When the company started working in the building in 2016, sterilizer plants were supposed to track how much gas they used and report the amount to regulators. Plants that handled more than 1 ton of the chemical a year in large chambers were required to limit emissions.The Times reviewed public inspection records for the Temple Terrace site from federal, state and county environmental agencies. The first known report is dated November 2019. The Times could find no evidence of prior inspections of the plant in the first three years it operated. Nor could regulators provide any.When local air inspectors arrived unannounced that November, they examined more than three years of the company’s self-reported records to estimate it had used 1.2 tons of the carcinogen in a yearlong period without pollution controls.Most sterilizer plants fill large chambers with the gas to clean medical equipment, and face stricter requirements for handling the chemical. But the Temple Terrace plant was one of at least 15 nationwide that used a different approach: It injected a daily average of 600 individual bags, some as large as a pillowcase, with ethylene oxide to sterilize surgical tools. Based on this distinction, the inspectors labeled the company as in compliance with regulations — despite it using more than a ton of gas in a year. Federal rules requiring pollution controls didn’t apply to American Contract Systems’ uncommon sterilization method, one of the inspectors, Sahand Nasseri, told the Times.“Ultimately, nothing happened because the rule didn’t require anything,” he said. Nasseri recalled telling an official at the Florida Department of Environmental Protection that he thought the filter rule didn’t apply in Temple Terrace. “It was very vague.”He would visit the plant more than a half dozen times over the next several years.Less than three months after Nasseri’s first inspection, the director of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s air division asked the EPA to clarify rules for plants like the one in Temple Terrace. Otherwise, the official wrote in a letter, plants could use as much as 10 tons of the gas “without installing any controls.” It was the first of two such requests the state agency would make to the federal government, according to records it provided to the Times. The agency’s district office is across the street from the sterilizer plant.American Contract Systems was talking about using filters in Temple Terrace at least as early as July 2021, according to permitting paperwork. The company submitted a diagram showing how the equipment would reduce emissions.The next year, the EPA estimated the cancer risk around the building. It combined how much gas the company bought with weather and terrain data to calculate where plumes of ethylene oxide moved in the surrounding neighborhood.The agency made its predictions as if the plant had pollution filters, said spokesperson Patti Ghezzi. She said that decision was based on faulty information provided by American Contract Systems.A spokesperson for the plant’s parent company since 2021, Owens and Minor , told the Times the business “did not mislead” regulators about when filters were installed.The “first indication that the facility may have emitted more EtO (ethylene oxide) than previously estimated and posed a potential risk” came in March 2023, Ghezzi said. Local air regulators found the company still had not installed filters.It had been releasing tons of the gas for about seven years.Environmental regulators weren’t aware of any air quality monitoring conducted outside the Temple Terrace plant, Ghezzi said. Tests for ethylene oxide in the air can be imprecise and expensive, experts say.Emails reviewed by the Times detailed a string of delays in installing filters: Incorrect drawings. Supply chain problems. Contractors going back and forth about how to affix 300-pound filter equipment to the building’s roof.Meanwhile, the EPA worked slowly to come up with stricter rules that could have required pollution controls. Installation of air filters remained voluntary.“We couldn’t enforce it on them and say, ‘No, you’ve got to do it tomorrow,’” Nasseri said.As regulators started to realize the serious danger of ethylene oxide, unwitting residents in Temple Terrace went about their daily lives.They boated down the Hillsborough River, casting for freshwater bass. They mowed their lawns. They went to work. They took their kids to school, one sitting less than 5,000 feet from the plant.After the EPA at last told them about the elevated cancer threat in June 2023, local leaders were alarmed.“Unfortunately we learned of this at the same time you did. We have had no previous communications from the EPA on this,” Mayor Andy Ross wrote to one worried resident in an email. “We share your concerns about the health risks posed to our residents by this situation, and like you are not satisfied with the timetable for implementing a solution.”City Manager Carlos Baía asked a leader in the state’s air division to “hold this company accountable by shutting them down” until American Contract Systems installed filters. “As you can imagine, having an identified elevated cancer risk in our community and simply waiting on them to work their way through vendor difficulties is not acceptable to our residents nor should it be for their employees,” Baía wrote in an email reviewed by the Times.The EPA hosted its first public meeting in June 2023 — one of at least two that would take place that year.“Some of us have lived here many years before this company showed up. No one warned us of any danger before we bought our forever homes and grew our families,” a resident said during one public comment session. “Why can’t this company operate in a less populated and less environmentally sensitive area? How do we get them to move?”American Contract Systems asked the mayor to read a statement at a City Council meeting saying the company regularly conducted air quality tests both inside and outside the plant, according to emails obtained by the Times.The tests ensured “the continued safety of our teammates and the communities where we live and work,” a company official wrote. The mayor declined to read the statement but said the city’s message would be “aligned” with the company’s.American Contract Systems didn’t provide the results of those tests when Times reporters asked to see them last month.Once the plant installed filters in July 2023, the EPA estimated emissions of ethylene oxide substantially dropped — dramatically lowering the cancer risk in the surrounding area.It’s unclear exactly how much ethylene oxide neighbors were exposed to before that point and what effects the gas had on their health. Florida’s public cancer data portal doesn’t show rates at the ZIP code level, making it difficult to calculate how Temple Terrace compares to other cities.Better exposure data is needed to pinpoint impacts, said Kyle Steenland, an Emory University professor who has studied how ethylene oxide makes people sick.“Nobody really knows the answer to that,” he said.As time passed, more residents fell ill. Some only learned about the plant then, or when they were peppered with ads and flyers from lawyers seeking clients for suits against the company.April Jacobs, who moved back to Temple Terrace in 2019 to be closer to her granddaughter, was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2024. She underwent a surgery, waking up surrounded by family in the same hospital where she gave birth to her two children. Jacobs is now suing the company.“I was shocked,” she said. “How could they allow something like that — a business to operate so close to where people live?”Joe Anderson, a former Temple Terrace police officer, remembers watching the site get built while he ate lunch across the street in his police cruiser. He didn’t think much about what was happening inside.In October 2024, he was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a rare blood cancer. After battling crippling pain for months, Anderson relies on a home dialysis machine. He had to retire from the police force early.The former detective said he never asked his doctor what caused his cancer. He was more concerned with getting healthy.In January, Anderson found a flyer from personal injury lawyers in the mail. The firm had created a website, which warned people: “You were exposed to CANCEROUS TOXINS …” He reached out to the lawyers but hasn’t heard back. Anderson spent years on patrol near the building. His home is about a mile away. Moffitt Cancer Center, where he underwent three rounds of treatment, lies 2 miles in the opposite direction.“It just kind of makes me wonder,” he said. “I did spend a lot of time around that area.”Earlier this month, he drove to Jacksonville to see the Mayo Clinic about a kidney transplant. After being waitlisted for a year, he was told he is ineligible because his immune system remains weak, and he could die if his body rejects a new organ. He’ll be on dialysis for the rest of his life.Anderson’s doctor told him he may only have five years to live. He wants to spend more time in Delaware with his 8-month-old grandson, who takes up pages of his phone’s photo album. He wants to return to the Appalachian Trail — one of the last adventures he took before he got sick.Anderson is aiming to stay fit enough for a 12-mile hike along a Virginia section of the trail near Shenandoah, where each footfall is tested by loose, rocky terrain. A doctor recently cleared him to get back on his bicycle. And he walks his small dog, Louie, 3 miles each day, despite how much it exhausts him.Under legal scrutiny, American Contract Systems’ Temple Terrace operation shut down in December, alongside its sister plant in Fort Myers.Weeks before, local regulators fined the company more than $30,000 because it didn’t properly maintain its new air filters, submit required samples or file its annual report.It’s unclear whether the unmaintained filters posed a risk to the community by letting out more ethylene oxide. County air inspectors did not test how effective the filters were, but said they were two weeks past their replacement date.Over a yearlong period between 2024 and 2025, American Contract Systems used nearly 2 tons of ethylene oxide at the site — an increase from its early days, according to company records reviewed by the Times.By the time the plant closed, at least two lawsuits had been filed against the company. More than a dozen others would follow in the months to come from residents who live as far as 4 miles from the plant — in an “exposure zone” where lawyers argue ethylene oxide drifted and lingered. American Contract Systems has asked a judge to dismiss at least one case.BayCare has also moved to get at least two cases dismissed.Lawyers for the medical giant argue the suits should be thrown out because they don’t include details like exactly how much gas was emitted and for how long. They also say several of the counts should be dismissed because residents didn’t provide BayCare’s contract and lease with American Contract Systems in their complaints.American Contract Systems has been dealing with other suits in state and federal courts involving residents of Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa and Texas who argue their health and livelihoods were harmed by the company’s pollution. The plant in Fort Myers is the subject of claims filed by more than 30 residents who say they have cancer.Records from one federal lawsuit say American Contract Systems “unleashed a deadly and ever-present series of plumes” across communities, “poisoning the air and causing marginalized areas to suffer disproportionately from environmental contamination.” It accuses the company of having “reckless practices.”Lawyers for American Contract Systems said in filings that the business should be protected because it complied with government regulations. They’ve declared that the company denies “all liability whatsoever.” They’ve also argued the business had “no duty” to warn residents of possible dangers coming from its sterilization process.The lawsuits are playing out amid new uncertainty for oversight of ethylene oxide. Under former President Joe Biden, the EPA had announced more controls for use of the gas, several of which would have gone into effect next spring.But last month, the EPA announced plans to roll back rules for the chemical. The agency said the move would “safeguard the supply of life-saving medical tools” and save companies about $630 million over the next 20 years.With American Contract Systems gone, state regulators say four ethylene oxide plants remain in Florida — in Palm Harbor, Jacksonville, Groveland and Ave Maria. They all have pollution controls, permitting records show. Unlike in Temple Terrace, the company in Palm Harbor installed pollution prevention measures when it opened, uses less ethylene oxide and has never failed an inspection.Hillsborough County air engineers met for a final time with the BayCare building’s director on the afternoon of March 9 to check the old sterilizer plant.Inspectors found no trace of the company or its sterilization equipment.The shelves lay bare. Yellow-and-black-striped hazard tape marked a rectangle on the floor of one empty room. Vents and pipes that scaled interior walls hung disconnected.The inspectors made one last determination for the empty site: It was in compliance. The Tampa Bay Times launched the Environment Hub in 2025 to focus on some of Florida‘s most urgent and enduring challenges. You can contribute through our journalism fund by clicking here .

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