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No. 11 August 1997 News for All Interested in Featuring News, Analysis, Resources and Contacts |
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MillWatch table of contents
MillWatch No. 11 - August 1997
Ask For The TCF/PCF Logos!
CPPA Sponsors Non-wood Fibre Forum
Fletcher Challenge BC Mills On Strike
MB Guilty on ClO2 Spill
Chlorine Leak At PVC Plant
Genetic Damage To Salmon From ClO2 Effluent
Hammermill Cut
Weyerhauser Bails Out Of Chlorate Plant
Pulp Prices On Rise
Thanks this issue to Laurie Valeriano of Washington Toxics Coalition, Miranda Holmes of Georgia Strait Alliance, Darrell Geist of Montana Cold Mountain, Cold Rivers, Lisa Finaldi of Greenpeace International, John Hummel, Michael Easton, Verona Goodwin.
The Chlorine Free Products Association has launched a Certification programme for totally chlorine free (TCF) and process chlorine free (PCF) paper products. The programme, accompanied by logos and the Guide to TCF & PCF Papers, beautifully-produced in a coated and uncoated paper version, is intended for manufacturers, suppliers and distributors, and customers of the products. The CFPA says, "The use of these logos is determined by the chemistry used in the mill, bleach plant, and/or deinking facility. If the bleaching process is FREE of chlorine and chlorine compounds, the facility can be certified."
The Guide includes ads from TCF and PCF pulp and paper manufacturers, and definitions for the critical terms: "TCF (Totally Chlorine Free) is a term reserved for virgin fiber papers ... PCF (Processed Chlorine Free) is a term reserved for recycled content papers. If the paper contains some virgin or recycled paper, that fiber is totally chlorine free. The post consumer fiber, bleached with chlorine for its first use, has not been rebleached with chlorine compounds. ECF (Elemental Chlorine Free) is a term reserved for paper bleached with chlorine dioxide. Use of this chlorine compound in the papermaking process does not eliminate organochlorines, dioxins, furans, and other persistent organic pollutants."
The manufacturers of TCF also include a section called "Debunking Four Myths about TCF." This article refutes the most common refrains about the need to continue chlorine based bleaching, stating that TCF pulping technology now has reached a point where brightness and strength are equal to any other pulp. The frequently- mentioned issue of lower yields from TCF bleaching turns out to have been a research error, but one which the chlorine dioxide industry continues to repeat: "A researcher compared ECF and TCF pulp yields after the first bleaching stage and erroneously concluded there was less. In the first bleaching stage of a modern mill, more bleaching work is done, so less trash is left in the pulp. He concluded less trash means less pulp. In fact, as his work was peer reviewed, it was found that TCF processes have an actual yield gain."
The cost issue is dealt with by pointing out that only 20% of North American mills have begun to modernize their production by adding oxygen delignification, which should be required in all mills for environmental reasons, and is necessary for successful TCF bleaching.
* Contact: Archie J. Beaton, Chlorine Free Products Association, 19 N. Main Street, Algonquin, IL 60102; ph (847)658-6104
The Canadian Pulp and Paper Association, which represents about 85% of the Canadian pulp industry, and Wiseman Noble, publishers of Commercial Hemp Magazine, are co-sponsoring a one-day symposium on non-wood fibre, as part of Paper Week in Montreal in January 1998. Researchers and companies will deliver information on industrial hemp, flax, kenaf, and switchgrass to over 18,000 industry personnel. A number of pulp and paper companies have been experimenting with alternative fibres. Press Release, Wiseman Noble and CPPA, July 1997 STILL NOT SUSTAINABLE The Minnesota Barley Research and Promotion Council and Blandin Paper Co. of Grand Rapids, Minn., have produced an experimental paper by mixing wheat or barley straw and wood pulps to produce a high quality glossy for newspaper inserts.
The company and the Minnesota barley group have entered a one year feasibility study of one or more farmer-owned mills, possibly in the Red River Valley, dedicated to turning straw into pulp.
In this region of the US, the straw had previously been get plowed back into the soil after harvest. Recently, the stalks have been used for "strawboard," as an alternative to wood-based particle board. Ten North Dakota communities now have strawboard plants in the planning stages.
About 2,400 unionized workers from the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers union (CEP) and the Pulp Paper and Woodworkers of Canada (PPWC) at New Zealand-based Fletcher Challenge's three BC mills at Crofton, Elk Falls, and MacKenzie are anticipating a long strike because of the company's demands for "full flexibility" in work arrangements, unlimited contracting out of union work and an end to the three-day Christmas shutdown. The unions worry that the demands will lead to massive job losses. Management says it needs the concessions, which it has already gained in eastern Canada, to remain competitive and has encouraged its customers to stockpile paper inventories in preparation for a long strike.
The workers, who earn between $20 and $30 an hour, receive $400 a week in strike pay, financed by $50 a week from BC's 10,000 other unionized pulp and paper workers who aren't on strike. The Fletcher Challenge agreement will set a pattern for the rest of the contracts in the BC industry.
Predictions are that, rhetoric aside, air quality around the coastal mill towns will be visibly improved for the duration of the summer.
Almost three years after the worst chorine dioxide accident in Canadian history, MacMillan Bloedel was found guilty on three charges of introducing business waste into the air and ocean near the Powell River, British Columbia mill. The company was also convicted of depositing a deleterious substance into the ocean. Five other charges related to the October 1994 toxic spill were dismissed because the company argued that it had acted as judiciously as possible under the emergency circumstances. The accident occurred when a pulp tank corroded and exploded. The debris ruptured two chlorine dioxide storage tanks, releasing about 600,000 litres of the liquid gas. No one was injured as a result of the incident.
Sentencing has been postponed until September, when another case against the company for spilling about one million litres of effluent is expected to conclude. The charges carry maximum fines of between $300,000 and $1 million. Canadian Press, July 1997
The Edmonton Journal reported in June 1997 that the Dow Chemical vinyl plant in Fort Saskatchewan Alberta leaked chlorine gas for five minutes, over-coming 38 workers. The plant had been shut down for repairs and began to leak on start up. Chlorine gas is one of the raw materials used to make polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic.
A study published last February in Water Science and Technology reveals that juvenile Chinook salmon suffered genetic damage when exposed for 30 days to pulp mill effluent at concentrations found in the upper Fraser River during the low flow period from January to March. The study done on the site of the mill's effluent stabilization pond used tanks in a controlled environment trailer designed to simulate the water, light and food conditions experienced by the fish in the river. The mill bleaches with 100% chlorine dioxide and the effluent treatment involves an 8 day stabilization basin, aeration, and bacterial digestion, a state-of the-art system. The effluent is nontoxic as defined by the 96 hour trout bioassay
The genetic analysis done by flow cytometry was designed to detect gross chromosome damage in the form of a net loss or gain in DNA from the nucleus, such events reflecting chromosome breakage. The red blood cells are produced in the final cell division process of the blood transit cells which are, in turn, formed from the blood stem cells. Either the transit or stem cells or both were being genetically damaged by the effluent. The damage can only be detected by flow cytometry after the cell has divided to create the situation where an unequal amount of the chromosome material (nuclear DNA) is passed on to each daughter cell.
The effluent concentrations used were 0 (the control), 2%, 4%, 8% and 16%. Significant damage started at 4% effluent concentration and significantly increased further at 8% before falling off at 16%. This fall off at the 16% level is indicative of the changing nature of the damage. The authors believe that some cell division is prevented thus does not allow the chromosome disruptions to be expressed in the red blood cells. There were two simultaneous tests run, one in water of a normal oxygen level and the other in oxygen-reduced water. Both groups showed the same concentration response relationship.
Juvenile chinook salmon overwinter in the near shore reaches of the Fraser River in the vicinity of the diffusers from the pulp mill. They do not appear to avoid areas where effluent is known to occur. The effluent concentration in the winter time has been measured at 4% concentration 1/2 kilometer from the diffuser. At this time of year, a 1% effluent concentration has been estimated by Hatfield Associates to occur from Prince George to Lytton, a distance of 600 km. Other researchers have shown that the genetically toxic effect is dependent not only on effluent concentration, but also on duration of exposure. This means that given enough time, even the 1% concentration can be genetically damaging. The researchers have not yet had an opportunity (i.e. research funding) to examine the juvenile chinook winter residents in the Fraser River for genetic damage.
This river is one of the last undammed major salmon rivers in the world.
The authors point out that genetic damage, if also prevalent in egg and sperm cells, can result in an increase in the genetic load of whole stocks which may prevent the fish from adapting to new environmental conditions in the future such as may be caused by global warming. More immediately, "one of the main consequences of mutagenicity on somatic cells is the greatly increased risk of cancer in the fish of the present generation."
The authors suggest that since fish are already being sampled from rivers in present monitoring programs by pulp mills that genetic testing could be added with little additional expense and inconvenience by incorporating it as part of the Stage Two Environmental Effects Monitoring required under Canadian federal law. Dr. Easton submitted the test method to the Expert Working group on Laboratory Testing, but the procedure was not accepted by the Lab group for two reasons: uncertainty about the standardization of the method; and no interlab variability validation studies. Dr. Easton reports that the procedure was then passed on to the Adult Fish Group (who do the field sampling), but was not adopted, even as an experimental procedure. Inexplicably, the Technical committees composed of government and industry managers, decided not to pursue this vital research avenue.
The research was reported on the front page of the Vancouver Sun in mid July and repeated in several of the major dailies across Canada.
* "Genetic Toxicity of Pulp Mill Effluent on Juvenile Chinook Salmon Using Flow Cytometry," M.D.L. Easton, G. M. Kruzynski, L. L. Solar and H. M. Dye, Water Science Technology, Vol. 35, No. 2-3, pp 347-355, February 1997
In July, International Paper, the world's largest paper producer, announced plans to eliminate 9,000 jobs, 10 % of its workers, by selling assets and reducing its US pulp and uncoated paper capacity by 15%, 400,000 tons. Assets to be sold are IP's imaging business, multiwall kraft packaging and 175,000 acres of timberland in Pennsylvania and New York. The company will close three production lines at its Erie, PA mill, close the Woronoco, Mass. mill and close the de-inking pulp operation in Lock Haven, PA.
Hammermill Unity and Springhill Incentive papers, the paper of choice for those seeking a cost-effective recycled non-chlorine bleached copy or printing paper, will no longer be in production after October 1997. International Paper says the lines did not meet price and volume expectations. The papers in question are: Hammermill Unity DP, Hammermill Incentive Unity Offset, Hammermill Unity Reply Card, Springhill Incentive 100 DP, Springhill Incentive 100 Offset, and Springhill Incentive 100 Return Postcard.
Although the company posted a loss for the quarter, and the workers will lose their jobs, "Wall Street reacted with enthusiasm to the program," driving International Paper shares up 9 percent, according to the Associated Press.
Weyerhaeuser Canada has sold Saskatoon Chemicals Ltd. to a subsidiary of Sterling Chemicals Holdings, Inc. for US $65 million. Saskatoon Chemicals employs 165 and manufactures sodium chlorate, primarily for the pulp and paper industry and water treatment. Weyerhaeuser's pulp mills in Prince Albert and Kamloops will continue to purchase about 50 percent of the products manufactured by Saskatoon Chemicals. Weyerhaeuser said the sale is part of a continuing effort to tighten its focus on the company's core businesses.
Based in Huston, Texas, Sterling Chemicals manufactures petrochemicals, acrylic fibers and pulp chemicals and provides large scale chlorine dioxide generators to the pulp and paper industry. It has five Canadian and one US sodium chlorate plants and is one of the key sponsors of the Alliance for Environmental Technology Weyerhauser Press Release, July 1997
The cyclical nature of the unruly pulp market is again on the revolve as the price of lumber and pulp rise. Newsprint, which drew only $490 US a tonne at the beginning of 1997, is now at $565, and is expected to hit $615 by the end of the year. Labour disputes are expected to help lower inventory and thus raise prices. Vancouver Sun, July 1997