Iffat Walker didn’t realize how close a facility that had been emitting a toxic chemical shown to cause lymphoma and breast cancer was to her family until she pulled up a map.
Her mother’s home in Covington, where Walker spends time regularly, sits roughly 10 miles from a sterilizer plant that uses ethylene oxide, a gas classified by federal regulators as a known human carcinogen.
“Of course, that’s alarming,” said Walker, a Conyers resident and founder of Community Action Now. “Emitting these types of toxins — it’s in the air, so it’s definitely going to travel.”
The facility, owned by the medical technology company Becton Dickinson and Co., uses ethylene oxide — an odorless gas used to sterilize medical equipment.
Short-term effects from exposure to ethylene oxide include symptoms like skin rashes, eye irritation, headaches, and memory loss, and long-term effects include increased risk of developing breast cancer, lymphoma, and other blood cancers, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Now Walker and residents in Newton County could be impacted by the outcome of a pending federal lawsuit involving this facility.
The lawsuit challenges recent federal exemptions granted under President Donald Trump to dozens of sterilization facilities across the country — including the Becton Dickson facility in Covington — that use ethylene oxide.
The lawsuit was filed by a coalition that includes a local environmental group called Sustainable Newton and is represented by attorneys with the Southern Environmental Law Center and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Environmental advocates argue the exemptions delay stronger pollution controls finalized in 2024 and disproportionately endanger nearby low-income and communities of color, raising concerns about environmental justice in Newton County, a county that is majority Black.
“My concern is layered,” Walker said. “We continue to see these types of companies strategically place themselves within underserved communities, those that don’t have access to all of this information, don’t know where to look, don’t even know to ask.”
Walker said the issue feels especially urgent given the county’s demographics and the presence of unhoused residents and low-income families nearby.
“We have a homeless shelter there. We know from our point-in-time count it’s at capacity,” she said. “Given those that are unhoused and in tents in that same area, this is really concerning. I’m looking at it from a different lens now — the direct impact on people who don’t even have the protection of four walls.”
A rollback after years of advocacy
Maurice Carter, 66, co-founder of Sustainable Newton, lives about a mile from the BD facility in Covington. When he read about the exemptions, he said, it hit differently than other environmental policy changes he has tracked over the years.
“It felt personal and very, very local and immediate,” Carter said. “Just a few years ago we were hearing from our government saying this chemical is more carcinogenic than we thought. It’s present at higher levels than we thought and this requires action.”
Ethylene oxide was not widely scrutinized until a study was conducted in 2016 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which found the chemical was 30 times more carcinogenic than what was previously known.
In 2024, after years of review and public comment, the EPA finalized a rule requiring commercial sterilizers to install stronger pollution controls, conduct ongoing emissions monitoring of ethylene oxide, and to share their data publicly online. The EPA estimated the rule would cut emissions by more than 90% and reduce cancer risk by 92%.
Sustainable Newton submitted comments supporting stricter standards.
“We felt good when that got implemented,” Carter said.
However, Carter argues that the exemptions delay compliance for facilities.
“There was nothing in that executive action that said, ‘We looked at the science again and we don’t think it’s that dangerous,’” he said. “It was just that it costs too much money.”
A 2023 report, conducted by Georgia’s Environmental Protection Division, found that the facility had levels of ethylene oxide emissions comparable to other sites with no known commercial sources of the chemical. For Carter, the concern is having no updated information on the facility’s emissions.
It’s cited in the lawsuit that “despite multiple inquiries,” Sustainable Newton, has not received up to date emissions data from the BD facility since 2023.
“Because of the exemption, Sustainable Newton and its members have lost access to information they would otherwise have been able to access,” the lawsuit says.
Matt Marcus, Becton Dickinson’s vice president of public relations, told Capital B Atlanta that the company has “invested in major emission‑control upgrades” and argues that the exemption granted to them doesn’t end their “compliance obligations,” but gives them more time to meet the requirements of the 2024 EPA rule.
“It simply provides an extended timeline necessary to complete the specialized upgrades within a realistic timeframe that maintains uninterrupted production of critical medical devices and ensures the continued safety of operations,” Marcus said.
But Irena Como, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, said that the exemptions are a part of a larger effort by the Trump administration to repeal the 2024 rule altogether.
“EPA has already indicated that they intend to repeal that strong rule. The exemptions are just part of that overall weakening of environmental protections that can help people living near these facilities avoid developing cancer,” Como said.
Vulnerable communities at risk
As a Covington resident, Carter said his other concern is the facility’s location, which he said sits close to the Covington Housing Authority and low income and communities of color.
“If we know it increases the risk of cancer, and we’ve identified ways that the EPA said would lower that risk, then I’m not real comfortable with presidential actions that say, ‘We’re going to ignore that science,’” Carter said.
Alana Sanders, a Covington resident and former Newton County commissioner, said the facility’s proximity to lower-income and communities of color reflects a familiar pattern.
“I know that companies bring in tax dollars. I know there’s various things that we want, such as economic development,” Sanders said. “We want to have jobs for our community, yes, but it should never be at the cost of people.”
She said she worries about families who cannot afford to relocate.
“It also concerns me for those individuals who live in that area who cannot move, cannot afford to go somewhere else, and the only choice they have is to stay in that location,” she said.
She said she has spoken with residents who believe their health has suffered, though she cannot independently confirm those claims.
“I have spoken with people who say they were never sick, and now they’re sick,” Sanders said. “That situation is very sad to me.”
The use of ethylene oxide has prompted dozens of lawsuits in Georgia from residents who live near sterilization plants and claim that emissions from those facilities caused their cancer or other health problems.
In May 2025, longtime Covington resident Gary Walker who developed non-Hodgkin lymphoma won $20 million in compensatory damages in a lawsuit against the BD facility after decades of exposure to ethylene oxide emissions as a jury who ruled in his favor found the facility liable for his cancer.
“I am tired of seeing people put things in low-income communities because they feel they can,” Sanders said. “All people are important, no matter their economic status.”
The legal battle
Como said the exemptions were granted to dozens of facilities across the country, including five in Georgia.
“What these exemptions have done is give polluters an additional two years to pollute without reducing these emissions that would save lives,” Como said.
Many of the sterilizers are located in residential neighborhoods, she added, and “are disproportionately cited in Black and brown communities and low-income areas.”
The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Washington, D.C., asks a judge to strike down the exemptions as it claims that the exemptions violate the Clean Air Act and are an overstep of the president’s authority.
As the case moves forward, residents like Walker say the issue remains deeply personal.
“It’s in our backyard,” Walker said. “And we deserve to know what’s happening in our community.”
For Carter, the broader principle is about balance.
“There’s nothing wrong with making money,” he said. “Governments need to balance their budgets. Businesses need to make money. But we can’t do that at the expense of the people themselves or the environment we’re going to live in.
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