Marion County, Oregon commissioners approved an order Thursday to stop an incinerator from using aborted babies to generate power. The order states that the incinerator must stop accepting medical waste until procedures are in place to ensure aborted babies are not among the substances burned to produce electricity.
As Breitbart News’ Warner Todd Huston reported earlier on Thursday, authorities in Victoria, British Columbia revealed that the remains of aborted babies are disposed of in the United States and sent to a facility that burns waste to provide electric power for Oregon residents.
According to the Associated Press, pro-life Marion County commissioners Sam Brentano and Janet Carlson said they were horrified to learn that the Marion County Resource Recovery Facility in Brooks might be burning aborted babies to generate power.
“We’re going to get [to] the bottom of it,” Carlson said. “I want to know who knew, when they knew, how long they had known this was going on.”
Brentano observed nevertheless that the county’s ordinance that sets limits on what can be accepted at the waste-to-energy plant allows for all human tissue.
“No rule or law has been broken, but there’s an ethical standard that’s been broken,” he said.
Nick Hallett of Breitbart London had previously reported in March that 15,500 aborted babies were incinerated to provide power for Britain’s NHS hospitals. The Department of Health subsequently banned the practice.
The Oregon incinerator is a partnership between the county and Covanta, a New Jersey-based company that operates energy-from-waste power generation plants. The Marion County plant reportedly processes 550 tons of municipal solid waste each day, with only a small portion coming from medical facilities. The plant sells the power to Portland General Electric.
Jill Stueck, a Covanta spokeswoman, said the company is cooperating with the order to suspend, and that it does not seek out the aborted babies as waste to burn.
“No one is saying bring us fetal tissue,” said Stueck.
Kristy Anderson, spokeswoman with the British Columbia Health Ministry, said regional health authorities have a contract with waste management firm Stericycle, which sends biomedical waste, including aborted babies, cancerous tissue, and amputated limbs to the Oregon facility.
Stericycle, which is based in Lake Forest, Illinois, has been harshly criticized by pro-life groups because of its practice of disposing of aborted babies collected from abortion clinics. Stericycle officials did not return phone calls from AP seeking comment.
Jeff Bickford, environmental services division manager in Marion County, said the plant has been accepting material from British Columbia for five to seven years. He added that medical waste providers such as Stericycle send all types of waste, including syringes, body parts, laboratory cultures, and bodily fluids after they are placed in red bags and sealed containers.
“You’ve got biological agent and infectious diseases in there, so they’re never opened once they’re sealed,” Bickford said.
According to Brentano, the county plans to rewrite its ordinance to clearly state that no tissue from aborted babies may enter the incinerator, and the providers will have to design a workable procedure after that.