FARGO, N.D. — California health officials have given notice that North Dakota is one of six states that could receive Ebola medical waste in case the state has any substance to incinerate.

In a notice posted last week, the California Department of Public Health listed North Dakota as one of six states where California sends medical waste to be incinerated when onsite disposal isn’t available at medical centers.

Healthcare Environmental Services Inc., located at a nearby park at 1420 40th St. N. at Fargo, operates a medical waste incinerator that also accepts waste from other locations.

Calls to Healthcare Environmental Services on Tuesday afternoon were not returned. A Sanford spokeswoman said it could not immediately comment on the possible incineration of Ebola waste from California at the Fargo facility.

In another development, public health officials are tracking two North Dakota residents who recently returned from countries in West Africa that are battling the Ebola epidemic.

Neither of those two residents is running a fever or showing any symptoms of an Ebola infection, which can include diarrhea, joint and muscle aches and abnormal bleeding.

“They’ve just recently traveled to the area,” said epidemiologist Michelle Feist of the North Dakota Health Department. “They pose no danger to the community.”

Health officials are not releasing information about where both people reside.

Public health officials in Minnesota and South Dakota are also tracking residents in those states who have recently visited Guinea, Liberia or Sierra Leone in West Africa, where an outbreak of Ebola has killed about 5,000.

State health officials are contacted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention when a person is entering the United States from these countries through five major international airports.

“We’re doing tracking,” said Sam Brungardt, a public information officer for the Minnesota Health Department.

On Monday, Minnesota health officials declared that they were tracking one resident who had traveled to West Africa, but the list of individuals to track is growing.

“It has grown, and it’ll continue to rise as we get reports from the CDC,” Brungardt said. “There’s people who are coming from these three West African countries daily.”

So far, not one of those being monitored for signs of fever with twice-daily temperature checks show any sign of infection, he said.

As a precaution, however, they will continue to be checked during the 21-day monitoring period, generally regarded as the incubation period for the Ebola virus.

South Dakota health officials are also monitoring somebody who recently returned from West Africa, but isn’t showing symptoms.

by: http://bismarcktribune.com/news/state-and-regional/n-d-could-receive-ebola-waste-from-calif/article_10e0e242-5f2c-11e4-8ff8-8ba8bab48ce3.html

South Dakota health officials also are monitoring someone who recently returned from West Africa, but is not showing symptoms.

by: http://bismarcktribune.com/news/state-and-regional/n-d-could-receive-ebola-waste-from-calif/article_10e0e242-5f2c-11e4-8ff8-8ba8bab48ce3.html

Norfolk County Council voted by 48 votes to 30 to terminate the contract for the proposed incinerator at Saddlebow in an extraordinary meeting in April.

Council officers had said that, due to delays in securing planning permission, the contentious project no longer provided good value for money, and councillors agreed to ditch it.

In May, the estimated cost of cancelling the contract was put at just over #33.7m. That included #20.3m to Cory Wheelabrator – the company that would have built and run the burner; public question costs of #1.6m and estimated interest rate associated expenses of #11.8m.

The first #11.8m of this bill was paid in July, but council bosses are locked in months of discussions about the fine details of the contract and how much that means the council must pay Cory Wheelabrator.
In September, it was announced the compensation will be”substantially lower” than the #20.3m originally estimated.

But in a meeting this week, Tom McCabe, interim director of environment, transport and development in Norfolk County Council, told councillors that the final figure had yet to be agreed.

He said:”The conversation with Cory Wheelabrator is continuing and we would expect to have it resolved by Christmas.

“It is premature to say it will be done by then, however. It could be done before that it could drag on for more.”
Norfolk County Council is still trying to come up with a long-term solution to how to deal with the county’s waste.

But, in the short-term, a deal has been struck by their counterparts in Suffolk for rubbish to be burnt at a newly-built incinerator in Great Blakenham.

Over the next year, about 40,000 tonnes of Norfolk’s residual household waste will be hauled down the A140 to be burned at the plant.

• What do you think about the incinerator saga?