Editorial: Medical Waste Not just a Shore thing

New Jersey's environmental crimes unit is to be commended for quickly finding the apparent culprit responsible for medical waste that washed up on the beaches in Avalon just as the summer vacation season was ending.

Quickly finding a suspect helped erase understandable fears that the Shore had experienced a repeat of the near ruinous "Syringe Tide" that hit the beaches two decades ago.

Main Line dentist Thomas McFarland, who owned a home across the bay, allegedly took his motorboat to Townsend Inlet on Aug. 22 and dumped a bag full of 300 dental-type needles, along with 180 cotton swabs and other materials from his medical office in Pennsylvania.

Just why McFarland would do such a thing has not been disclosed, but the incident offers some lessons.

First is the realization that it can be too easy for one person to cause so much havoc - ruining costly vacations, spreading fear, and threatening the reputation of a resort considered among the best at the Shore.

Fortunately no one was hurt, but that does not detract from the discomforting fact that such an act could be a mechanism for terrorism.

It also could be the expensive result of large-scale illegal dumping. The Shore tourist industry suffered a $1 billion blow in 1987 and 1988, when medical waste among New York City garbage that was dumped offshore started washing up on beaches. While Avalon's troubles evoked memories of that episode, it is reassuring to know this case was isolated - apparently the act of one man - and did not result from more extensive illegal dumping or a major failure in a legal disposal operation.

It also is good to know that state investigators were able to ultimately trace the waste back to McFadden through the manufacturers of the syringes and other medical devices that he had used in his Lower Merion Township dental practice.

This should serve as a strong deterrent to anyone considering committing such a crime.

But it is ironic to note that a federal law that was created in response to the crisis in the 1980s - and that helped make such tracking possible - was allowed to expire in 1999, leaving in place a patchwork of state regulations to deal with the problem. This was brought to the public's attention by U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone (D., N.J.), who says he plans to introduce legislation later this week to reestablish a uniform, national tracking system for medical waste.

Good for Pallone. While New Jersey has strong regulations in place, a federal measure is clearly needed to protect communities around the country - and not just resorts - from a similar fate and to put the weight of the national government behind enforcement.