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No. 14 February 1998 News for All Interested in Featuring News, Analysis, Resources and Contacts |
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MillWatch table of contents
MillWatch No. 14 - February 1998
Ontario Keeps Zero AOX As Goal For 2002
New Technologies Journal
Agencies Ignore Buy Recycled Order
National Pollutant Release Inventory For Canada
Workers Occupy KC Plant
Air Side Repairs
North America's Largest Power Boiler Vs. The People
Responsible Care Needs Reality Check, Say Unions
E. B. Eddy Wins With A Question Of Balance
Reach! On The Web
Government Burns Citizens On Beehive Burners
Children And Asthma: Risk Greatest From Smallest Particles
Thanks to John Jackson at Great Lakes United; Philip Fleischer, STOP Powell River; Billy Stern, Native Forest Network, Montana; Tony Tweedale, Cold Mountains Cold Rivers , Montana; Jay Ritchlin, Vancouver; Miranda Holmes, Vancouver; Laurie Valeriano, Washington Toxics Coalition, Seattle; the Brainerd Foundation, our many donors, and all those in communities working to help their mill clean up.
The Ontario provincial government has unexpectedly decided to retain the goal of AOX reduction as a legal requirement for the pulp and paper industry. In 1993, Ontario's Pulp and Paper Regulation required mills to reduce AOX to .8 kg/Adt by 1999, and to submit reports to the ministry on how they intend to reduce AOX levels to zero by 2002.
Last year the Harris government announced that it planned to remove the regulatory reference to the Zero AOX goal and eliminate the reporting requirement. However, after a public comment period, the Ministry of Environment decided to maintain the goal of zero AOX and advance the AOX limit of .8 kg/Adt to December 1997. "The ministry will schedule a review and assessment in the year 2000 of the science on AOX in relation to the ministry's goal of eliminating the generation of AOX. The review will be based, in part, on the research obtained from the University of Toronto's consortium characterizing pulp and paper effluents." Pending the results of the scientific study, mills will not be required to submit reports on eliminating AOX. * "Better, Stronger, Cleaner Environmental Regulations for Ontario," Ontario Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, November 1997, Pibs 3610e, ISBN 0-7778-6936-5
A new pulp and paper journal focuses on innovative new technologies. Inpaper International is published quarterly by the Indian Agro Paper Mills Association (IAPMA), 1006, Pragati Tower, 26 Rajendra Place, New Delhi-110 008, India for $40 US.
The most recent issue has a great range of articles: a profile of the PTS research centre in Germany; "Non-Wood Fibers: Criteria Required for Acceptance and Expansion in the Pulp and Paper Markets;" a review of the Uttar Pradesh (an Indian State that has 100 of the country's 400 mills) seminar on their industry's changing needs; an interview with Mr. Nardi, the developer of the NACO pulping process used for straw in Italy and Spain; a special report on handmade papers; an article on the biomethanation pollution treatment process; and other interesting small articles.
The Indian paper industry has always been predominantly nonwood, and focussed on smaller mills. Although most of their current pulping processes are old and have pollution problems, thus not worth replicating, they have been dealing with the special economic and technical problems associated with smaller mills. They are also in the processes of modernizing their mills to make them both more economical and ecological. Due to the transport costs of straw, new mills are likely to be in the 10,000 to 50,000 tpy range: the exact range that most Indian mills currently are, thus making it likely that they have some equipment and technologies appropriate for smaller mills that are unavailable in the US.
The NACO pulping process is of particular interest as it is chlorine and sulfur free. It is an alkali-oxygen process that uses a sodium carbonate solution that is able to deal with high silica content in the straw. Billy Stern, Native Forest Network Missoula, MT 59807; ph (406)542-7343; fax (406)542-7347 Billysun@wildrockies.org
In December the American government admitted it had once again failed to comply with the Buy Recycled Executive Order (#12873) signed by President Clinton in October of 1993. The Buy Recycled order requires federal agencies to purchase recycled paper products if they are reasonably priced, available, and perform like their non-recycled counterparts. But this simple requirement has not been met. For copier paper, overall compliance in 1997 was a meager 39%.
* Todd Paglia, Government Purchasing Project, PO Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036; ph: (202)387-8030
The National Pollutant Release Inventory, executed by Environment Canada, is now available for 1994 and 1995. Releases to air, land and water of 128 pollutants, from acetaldehyde to zinc and its compounds, are tabulated by industry and by volume. A further 45 chemicals, from allyl alcohol to 1,2,4,-trichlorobenzene were not reported as released by the nation's 1,740 facilities. Reporting thresholds were limited by the terms of reference: ten employees or more, "manufactures, processes or uses any of the NPRI-listed pollutants, in concentration equal to or greater than 1% and in quantities equal to or greater than 10 tonnes." This limits the usefulness of the data. In 1995 by-pro ducts were included in the calculation of the 10-tonne threshold, regardless of their concentration.
Nonetheless, the NPRI website is well constructed, and you can look up individual mills, compounds, regions, or cities with the click of a mouse: http://www.ec.gc.ca/pdb/npri/npri.html or contact NPRI at regional offices or Environment Canada, Place Vincent Massey, 9th Floor, 351 St. Joseph Blvd., Hull Quebec K1A 0H3; ph (819)953-1656; fax: (819)994-3266 or email: npri@ec.gc.ca
In January, French workers occupied a factory belonging to US-based paper products multinational Kimberly-Clark (KC), in a bid to prevent its closure.
In November, two years after merging with Scott paper, KC announced "sale, closure or downsizing of up to 18 [mostly tissue] manufacturing facilities worldwide and a workforce reduction of approximately 5,000 employees."
In Maine Kimberly-Clark executives met with state legislators about the closure of the Winslow mill which cut 264 workers. "The company was very open and willing to cooperate," said a spokesman for the Governor. "But they do have a somewhat different perspective on things than we do." The mill in Marinette, Wisconsin will be "downsized" by 230 workers and 30 managers, while Neenah will lose 100 jobs.
Email messages of support for the French workers to ce.cekimberlyclark@hol.fr
* ICEM Update, January 1998
Contracts worth $1.9 million, awarded to Environmental Elements Corp., will result in the rebuild of precipitators at Fort James in Camas Washington, International Paper's linerboard mill in Vicksburg, Mississippi, Willamette Industries' fine paper mill in Hawesville, Kentucky, and upgrades at Harmac Pacific pulp mill in Nanaimo, British Columbia.
Meanwhile, Western Pulp in Port Alice on Vancouver Island is spending $24 million to buy new digesters, chip conveyors, baleing equipment and the closed Ketchikan Pulp's evaporators to produce "Spent Sulphite Liquor."
* Gold River Record, December 1997, and Environmental Elements Press Release, January 1998
MacMillan Bloedel (MB) in Powell River, British Columbia is presently commissioning the largest power boiler ever to be built in North America. People who breath the air in Powell River are concerned about it.
Powell River has been an exemplary coastal pulp industry town. It had been the kind of social environment where a comment about that pulp stink, reduced sulphur, would be answered with, "That's the smell of money."
You won't hear this these days. The smell remains but the money is somewhere other than Powell River. Layoffs and downsizing have brought about cataclysmic changes in community attitudes. People who still have their jobs in the mill have been openly critical, questioning company moves such as MB's recent shutdown of sawmill operations, which cost 90 jobs.
MacMillan Bloedel's new power boiler is on the cutting edge of the global hatchet. The biggest such boiler ever to be fired up on this continent, it was built in China, by an American firm, using a design from Finland and the on site work of a Swedish engineering firm.
It will burn natural gas, pulp sludge and increasing quantities of wood waste which will be barged in from other parts of the province. [See also "Beehive Burners," Watershed Sentinel, BELOW]
Several aspects of the project are controversial.
There has not been the review one would expect under the BC Environmental Assessment Act. In fact, the permit was signed off as a 'minor amendment' by the BC Ministry of Environment. This is one of the grounds for the appeal before the Environmental Appeal Board (EAB), to open January 29th. The case has already been contentious.
Shortly after the appeals were registered, MacMillan Bloedel's lawyers argued that the appellants were "not aggrieved" according to the Waste Management Act. Although this was perfectly legal, it was a bit unusual. The EAB finally ruled that both appellants must be heard.
The appellants had asked for a stay of permit which would mean the old permit should stay in effect until a decision was reached on the new one. The EAB agreed and ordered the stay. MB began a multitrack campaign to have the stay lifted as soon as possible. An EAB Special Hearing was held December 16. But before any new decision could be announced, the Premier's office announced that " extraordinary" circumstances had generated an Order-in-Council overruling the stay order
Nonetheless, both the Premier's office and Ministry of Environment maintain that if the evidence at the hearings convinces the EAB that the permit should be cancelled, then the EAB can cancel it.
The grounds for the appeal are wide:
The chemical industry continues to proclaim high-profile support for the Responsible Care (RC) programme, while the Canadian Pulp and Paper Association plans to institute a similar community relations approach to overcome public distrust. However, in 1997 the 20-million member strong International Federation of Chemical, Energy, Mine, and General Workers Union (ICEM), conducted a survey which showed workers are neither widely involved in nor well informed about the RC programme. Among workers from 29 unions in 21 countries, 35% of respondents were not even aware of it, except in Japan, Scandinavia and northwestern Europe.
Unions expressed considerable scepticism about Responsible Care:
* ICEM Online, at http://www.cicem.org
E. B. Eddy won a gold award in December for its 1996 Report on Sustainable Development, A Question of Balance. The report details progress towards the sustainable development goals chosen by the company in 1992: * Doubling of recycled content from 12% in 1992 to about 28% in 1995 * Chlorine free bleaching" (eg. ECF, chorine dioxide) installed by 1995 with ozone bleaching on schedule as a Canadian first to replace chlorine dioxide in the first bleaching line for hardwood pulp at Espanola by 1998 * Water usage reduced by 20% * Goal of 10% fossil fuel reduction not met in all lines of the company, due in part to a new gas-fired kiln.
Other goals include the reduction of a myriad of releases, from persistent bioaccumulative (ARET) substances to BOD in effluent and air emissions of chloroform and total reduced sulphur (TRS). Harder to evaluate are goals of sustainable forest management "in accordance with the Ontario Forest Industries Association Code of Forest Practices" and community relations. The report details species harvested, fibre sources, and fibre input into different products.
The judges of the environmental reporting awards were the Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants, the Task Force on the Churches and Corporate Responsibility, and the International Institute for Sustainable Development. E. B. Eddy, a subsidiary of George Weston Ltd., owns sawmills and pulp and paper mills in Ontario, Quebec, Michigan, and British Columbia (Island Paper Mills in Vancouver).
* Contact: Roger Cook, Vice President Environment, E.B. Eddy, (705)869-2020 Ext. 487
New office paper lists and the Reach for Unbleached! sludge research proposal have been recently posted on our web page.
ALSO OF INTEREST, From the Watershed Sentinel, February/March 1998
The first deadline for phase out was 1975! Last month, while doctors protested, the dirty devices got another extension. By Liza Morris
The government of BC has a short-term memory when it comes to dealing with beehive burners. As far back as 1971, government pollution objectives called for a 1975 phase-out of the burners. Now, a quarter of a century later, the province is giving further phase-out extensions to the operators of these highly hazardous incinerators.
A recent government press release claims that "stringent conditions [will be] placed on wood residue burners" be cause they are a "significant public health issue." However, it's hard to take this type of rhetoric seriously with all the foot dragging, extensions and amended regulations that have occurred to date. The beehive burners were given two years' notice to be completely phased-out by December 31, 1997. Of the 80 high-polluting burner operations in BC, only 44 met this deadline. The rest now have until March 31, 1998 to submit acceptable phase-out plans. There is no new date for shutting them down.
Economics may be the excuse for this deathly slow response to the government regulations, with higher costs for wood waste disposal and possible job loss. Meanwhile, the burners continue to pump out lung damaging smoke, ash and particles, making them a major health threat to surrounding communities.
West Coast Environmental Law Association argues that there are more effective ways to be reducing greenhouse gas emissions without causing local air quality problems. The most effective way is to convert wood residue into ethanol for use in cars and trucks. A few sawmills are studying this option, but prospects for ethanol production are dim unless government takes some action.
Strangely, the provincial government acknowledges the danger of the burners in an Environment Ministry publication, stating that the burning is often inefficient and that the emissions cause "frequent episodes of air pollution for many small communities, limiting visibility and leading to health problems." Environment, Lands and Parks Minister Cathy McGregor says that as recently as last summer the provincial health officer "identified particles from wood smoke as a concern."
The amended regulation which will extend the commercial lives of the remaining beehive burners, became the focus of a recent protest by many doctors in the Bulkley Valley area. * BC Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks Press Release, December 1997, Air Resources pamphlet , circa 1993 Vancouver Sun, December 1997
A study published last year of young asthma sufferers in Mexico City supports the argument that PM2.5 is a better indicator than PM10 of the health impacts of particulate matter. The terms PM2.5 and PM10 refer to the concentrations of particles measuring 2.5 or 10 microns or less in diameter, respectively. The study was carried out in an area of the city where air quality frequently exceeds standard guidelines on ozone and particulate. It was observed that a 20 microgram per cubic metre increase in PM10 was associated with an 8% increase in lower respiratory illness in five to thirteen year old children. Meanwhile, a 10 microgram per cubic increase in PM2.5 was associated with a 21% rise.
* Air Quality Issues, Vol.2, Issue 2, November 1997 Clean Air Network