Medical Waste Pyrolysis Facility Proposed Near Pahrump DMV Sparks Opposition

MediWaste Disposal LLC secured a 5-0 planning approval in April to operate a medical waste pyrolysis facility at 1850 E. Basin Avenue, directly next to the Pahrump DMV, before most residents knew the vote was happening. The fallout since has filled the Nye County Commission chambers twice and pushed District Attorney Brian Kunzi to draft new county industrial regulations from scratch.

The building itself was a propane company before MediWaste purchased it. What the company proposes to do there is not incineration. Pyrolysis heats waste to extreme temperatures in the complete absence of oxygen, breaking material down through thermal decomposition rather than combustion. Attorney Mark Fiorentino of the Kemper Kroll law firm, who represented MediWaste at the July 16 Nye County Commission hearing, said the process generates no air-stack emissions and no wastewater discharge. It produces two byproducts: biochar, a carbon-based material used in agriculture and renewable energy, and a liquid fuel including dimethyl ether and bio-oil that MediWaste plans to sell commercially. Biochar goes to the Pahrump Landfill unless it fails acceptance testing. Sealed, pre-sorted waste containers arrive primarily from California; liquid fuel leaves in tankers, with State Route 372 and Highway 160 as the designated truck routes.

The Pahrump Regional Planning Commission voted 5-0 on April 10 following roughly an hour of discussion. Residents who wanted to challenge that decision missed the 30-day appeal window. The Nevada Division of Environmental Protection permit review is now the critical regulatory checkpoint. Under state procedure, NDEP's public notice carries a 30-day written comment period, and if the agency determines a public hearing is warranted, it must be announced at least 30 days in advance. Written objections can be submitted directly to NDEP as part of that process.

The announcement touched off immediate and sustained opposition. The Nye County Commissioners' Chambers at 2100 E. Walt Williams Drive were packed on May 21, with nearly every speaker opposed. Resident John O'Brien announced he would seek a court injunction to force the matter back to the RPC. A second packed hearing on July 16 drew dozens more urging commissioners to rescind the conditional use approval, with speakers raising fire and explosion risks, potential soil and groundwater contamination, additional pressure on an already-strained landfill, and the prospect of medical waste haulers regularly moving through town on Highway 160.

A conflict-of-interest question also shadowed the proceedings. RPC member Walt Turner had helped broker MediWaste's purchase of the 1850 E. Basin Avenue property before the permit hearing. Turner recused himself and cast no vote on the CUP.

MediWaste President Ryan Oganesian defended the choice, saying the company "selected the Basin site in particular because it is specifically zoned for uses like ours" and that opposition "may be due in part to a misunderstanding of our business and operations." Fiorentino put the planned capital investment at approximately $8 million, with five full-time jobs at opening scaling to about 15 at capacity. Former Pahrump Town Board member Harley Kulkin was among the few who stopped short of outright opposition, saying he wanted to hear more before judging the project's potential economic value to the valley.

Kunzi called his regulatory push "an imperative action" and warned that Nevada's permissive environment was drawing unwanted industry: "It does seem that we're becoming a potential target for some of these industrial production facilities that want to come out here because of Nevada's very lax regulations and kind of hide out here." The MediWaste uproar contributed to the separate denial of a solar panel recycling facility proposed by i-Quest Inc.

Nevada currently permits direct landfilling of untreated medical waste under NAC 444.646 and 444.662, and no commercial medical waste treatment facility has ever operated in rural Nevada. The scale of demand for such capacity was illustrated by Stericycle's October 2024 opening of a nearly $110 million, 110,000-square-foot medical waste incineration facility in McCarran. Whether Pahrump becomes the next node in that network now depends on what NDEP hears from the public and whether Kunzi's new regulations reach the commission floor before the agency acts.