Coastal pulp mills create one-fifth of all the dioxin in Canada.
by Delores Broten
They still make dioxin in paradise. On the coast of BC traditionally logs are boomed and transported in salt water, soaking in salt on the trip and during storage. Coastal pulp mills burn bark and sawmill waste (“hog fuel”) in their power boilers to make energy to run the mill.
When the “salty hog fuel” is burned, it makes dioxin, because the chlorine in the salt combines with carbon from the wood when it is burned. In fact, despite the clean-up of most of the dioxin from bleaching–an unrelated issue–eight coastal pulp mills are still creating one-fifth or more of all the dioxin in Canada!
A small amount (about 8.5 grams annually) is released into the air from the boiler smokestack. The rest (over 100 grams a year) goes into the ash and then into the mill landfills. Only some landfills have liners or collect all the contaminated leachate.
Further, some mills’ landfills are filling up, and the mills want to spread their sludge and ash on farm land and forests. Incomprehensibly, in just one of dozens of failures in a wildly-inaccurate inventory, Environment Canada classifies this dioxin-contaminated ash as a “product” because, in theory, it is not released to the environment.
How much dioxin is this?
It sounds like a small amount, but the Canadian federal government has been saying since 1995 that dioxin should be “virtually eliminated” because it is so dangerous to human health and the environment.
Dioxin is normally measured in nanograms or picograms; one nanogram is a trillionth of a gram and one picogram is one quadrillionth of a gram. Although these seem like very small concentrations, it adds perspective to realize that hormones enact major changes in the human body at concentrations of one part per trillion.
Japanese scientists say 17 grams of dioxin would be enough to kill 14 million rats!
Some of the other large sources of airborne dioxin in Canada are “teepee” garbage burners in Newfoundland. Municipal incinerators have been closed in most Canadian jurisdictions, leaving hospital incinerators as major sources. Residential wood and fuel combustion, diesel fuel, the steel industry, cement kilns, all release dioxins into the air.
Despite their process changes, pulp mills are estimated to put almost five grams a year into Canadian waters–although this is a significant improvement over the 1990 levels of 450 grams, which resulted in extensive fisheries closures. Pesticides and sewage sludge put an unknown amount of dioxin into the soil and thus into the food chain.
Dioxin: a Top POP
Dioxin is one of the “POPs” — a Persistent Organic Pollutant — and is one of the 12 chemicals chosen as the first subjects for a global treaty for elimination, control or banning. POPs cycle and recycle in the food chain, concentrating in the milk of mammals, including humans.
The 12 POPs chosen for the first round of international negotiations include:
- Dioxins and furans (PCDD/Fs), which are produced as unwanted by-products of several industrial processes including incineration;
- PCBs and HCB,(hexachlorobenzene) which have several uses and are also formed as unwanted by-products;
- DDT, chlordane, heptachlor, aldrin, dieldrin, endrin, toxaphene and mirex, which are pesticides.
What is the government doing?
Domestically, there have been a lot of meetings. Enviros have raged, and industry has stonewalled. Incinerators have been closed.
At the end of the day, a “Canada Wide Standard” will be brought to a meeting of the provincial and federal ministers of environment for consensus on some emissions levels for how much dioxin various industries should be allowed to make. They will call this “Virtual Elimination” because it will be prefaced with a statement that, in the end, eventually, in about 25 years, or some time later, Canada wants to stop making dioxin.
On an international level, Canada has promoted an international UN treaty on POPs because they concentrate in the Arctic. However, the Canadian and American delegations are negotiating for a weak treaty which will:
- Ban some of the worst pesticides, as has already been done in developed countries;
- Allow the continued re-use of PCBs (and the resulting leakage); and
- Suggest end-of-pipe controls to try to capture dioxin as it goes up smoke stacks.
Environmentalists and some European countries argue for elimination by using alternative technologies to stop the industrial creation of these toxic by-products, rather than attempts to control emissions. Because dioxin is so persistent, the continual creation of new dioxin means a continual, global, problem with disposal of contaminated ash.
Tight emission standard proposed
Here in BC, the Council of Forest Industries has generously proposed a tight emission standard on any new power boilers built for aging coastal pulp mills. However, the catch is that there are not likely to be any more $100 million boilers built.
COFI further suggests that the two worst offenders, the Fletcher Challenge Canada mills at Elk Falls and Crofton, may halve their emissions by 2005 through some remedial work on the boilers, adding such “end-of-pipe” fixes as a wet electrostatic precipitator, which Elk Falls is in desperate need of due to other air quality problems. Under this scenario, the mills will still be major creators of dioxin.
Taking the logs out of the water, or making sure they don’t soak up so much salt, would seem to be an obvious solution, but it doesn’t appeal to the rest of the forest industry. It would require changes in the way they move logs and they don’t want to incur the expense. In eastern Canada and the interior of BC, logs are no longer transported down the rivers due to the nasty impact on fish habitat.
Although the river drive has long been a heroic and romantic part of Canadian logging history, the industry changed and thrived. Even in Newfoundland and Labrador, logs are now moved by barge and off-loaded onto dry land sorts.
Coastal mills that continue to make dioxin from hog fuel include Fletcher Challenge Elk Falls, Fletcher Challenge Crofton, Harmac Pacific, Howe Sound P & P, Pacifica Port Alberni, Pacifica Powell River, Western Pulp Port Alice, and Western Pulp Squamish. The first two of these, the Fletcher Challenge mills, release the greatest amounts into the air.
It’s time for BC log handlers to modernize and try some innovative changes, such as: more use of barges and cranes, less loss of logs from sloppy handling, speedy delivery, cut-on-demand, and computerized inventories.
It’s time for BC’s coastal pulp mills to stop poisoning paradise.
* For more information, contact: Peter Ronald, Campaign Coordinator, Georgia Strait Alliance, at (250)361-3621.
[From WS April/May 2000]
