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No. 20 April 1999 News for All Interested in Featuring News, Analysis, Resources and Contacts |
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MillWatch table of contents
MillWatch No. 20 - April 1999
Call for a BC Sludge Moratorium
Towns Say 'No!' to Sludge Spreading in New Hampshire
Chlorine Free Summit in New York
Atlantic Packaging Sludge Gets Two Year Extension
New Life DP Certified PCF
Trains Carry Deadly Load
More on Rayonier Site
Powell River Recovery Boiler Keeps on Burning
MillWatch is sponsored by Reach for Unbleached! Canada to connect people and resources working on pulp and paper issues. Thanks to Helene Shields, Maureen Reilly, Brock Land Stewards, Ontario, Darlene Schanfald, Olympic Environmental Council, Port Angeles WA, Archie Beaton, Chlorine Free Products Association, Illinois, Darrell Geist, Cold Rivers Cold Mountains Montana, Philip Fleischer, the Brainerd Foundation and our donors who fund this newsletter, and all those in communities working to help their mill clean up. Write to us!
Reach for Unbleached!, other environmental groups, the Pulp, Paper and Woodworkers of Canada (PPWC) and the CEP have been participating in a British Columbia provincial stakeholder committee on sludge. They all strongly believe that thorough, independently designed and monitored sludge testing , real-world application trials and clear, enforceable regulations are needed before pulp mill wastes can be introduced into the environment, in any form.
RFU also cautioned against letting pulp mill wastes be redefined as products. "As soon as a 'waste' becomes a 'product' it is potentially entitled to all sorts of free trade related protections and privileges," said RFU Executive Director Delores Broten. "Once that happens it will be very difficult to stop the spread of these wastes to farms throughout North America. We should know what is going on these fields before we start eating the food grown with industrial waste for fertilizers."
The PPWC shares this opinion. At their last annual convention a resolution was passed stating that the end by-products produced at BC pulp and paper mills, known as either bio-solids or sludge, be considered toxic deleterious substances. Lack of documentation on content and unknown levels of toxicity in or carcinogenic reactions to these compounds were listed as the reasons for the resolution, "because of a complete lack of funding for scientific and impartial investigation to determine safe handling practices and long-term exposure effects ... " The PPWC concluded by stating that until the pulp and paper industry can supply "verifiable and irrefutable proof that there are no ill side effects to the workers who handle these products and demonstrable benefits to alternate uses for these effluent sludge by-products," they will demand that all sludge be stored in approved landfill sites.
Over 40 New Hampshire towns have voted to ban or restrict sludge spreading within their borders. New Hampshire is the only state in New England importing class B sewage sludge and industrial paper sludge. Towns are responding to the NH DES "open door" policy which welcomes low quality industrial sludge from out-of-state, by protecting themselves on a local level.
The Chlorine Free Products Association (CFPA) is hosting a Chlorine Free Summit April 29-30, 1999, at the UN Plaza in New York. Attending will be US state and federal representatives, as well as international industry representatives, distributors, NGOs and American manufacturers.
* For more information contact CFPA by email cfpal@ibm.net
The Ontario Ministry of Environment has given the green light to Atlantic Packing to continue landspreading pulp mill sludge on farm lands, despite evidence that the sludge probably has a negative effect on agriculture.
Rural residents in Ontario who have been complaining for the past five years that spreading sludge on farm land causes lower yields, were shocked to learn that scientific evidence and their own observations were not enough to stop further landspreading extensions.
The Atlantic Packaging "Soil Enrichment Program" is an experimental program managed by the Ontario Ministry of Environment that allows the waste sludge from Atlantic recycling mills in Scarborough and Whitby to be applied to farmland as a "soil conditioner."
When this program started in 1993, the Ministry was relatively confident that some agricultural benefits could be derived from applying sludge, but had no scientific evidence that long term application would be a benefit. The Ministry required that the mill conduct a 5 year long "Soil Benefit Study" as one of the conditions of the program.
Hundreds of farms in the Durham Region and Victoria County were spread with the grey waste. At least 120,000 tonnes of the material were spread on fields last year alone. Residents opposing the spreading believe that since it cost about $60 per tonne to send this waste material to landfill, the company sought permission to spread it on farmland on an experimental basis as a way of saving disposal costs.
Within the first few years of the program, testing by an independent research company found there was no benefit in yield from applying sludge. By the end of the five years, when the "Soil Benefit Study" was provided to the Ministry by Atlantic Packaging, there was little scientifically valid information on which to make a decision. Consequently, the Ministry ran its own tests.
Testing results found contaminants, like dioxins, measured more than ten times the levels reported by the company. Many problems with plant growth and yield, as well as earthworm mortality, led many to assume that Atlantic would not receive an extension on this program.
One year of Ministry phytotoxicity testing in pots on the two recycling mills' sludge, with addition of sewage sludge, found that sludge application improved soybean yield at application rates of up to 65 to 80 wet tonnes/ha in loam and clay soils, but yield decreased at higher rates. Even with added nitrogen, wheat yields on clay and loam decreased but increased on sandy soil. Tomato yields were decreased in all soils without the addition of nitrogen, and in sandy soil even with the addition of nitrogen. Leachate analysis indicated the sludge was tying up nitrogen even when N was added as a supplement.
The Ministry study concluded that "Atlantic Packaging Biosolids have potential for improving plant growth under specific management conditions," and that field trials were needed. However, the summary also indicated that only soybeans demonstrated statistically significant beneficial effect after application in their study. The Ministry also pointed out the limitations of their study, which examined only impact on agricultural crop growth:
"The study has not looked at long term effects of such things as nitrogen cycling, addition of large amounts of kaolinitic clays over long time periods, long term build up of organic matter in the soil, effect on yield in years following the year of application, etc." Further, pot studies do not equal field trials: "In the pot studies the bio-solids were well mixed in with the soil. This may be very difficult in practice in the field, and results could vary due to poor mixing. The study has not addressed situations such as pastures where the material cannot be fully incorporated into the soil on application."
Ontario renewed the Atlantic Packaging permit for a further two years, dependent, once again, on the company conducting studies to demonstrate agricultural benefit.
* Ontario Ministry of the Environment, Standards Development Branch, Phytoxicology Section, 7510 Farmhouse Crt., Brampton L6T 5N1; ph: (905)456-2504; fax: (905)456-1003
* Brock Land Stewards, Maureen Reilly, ph: (705)438-1456 or Don Whitcombe (705)426-4431.
The Chlorine Free Products Association (CFPA) announced in March that a popular US copy paper, New Life DP 100, manufactured by Rolland, Inc. in Quebec, now meets independently verified, Processed Chlorine Free (PCF) certification standards. This verification assures consumers that they are purchasing environmentally safe pulp and paper products.
News Release, CFPA, November 1998
In late December, two trains collided in Lowdes County, Mississippi, forcing the evacuation of eight people. Two cars were carrying sodium chlorate, which is used in bleaching and other cars were carrying carbon dioxide.
* USA Today, December 1998
The battle over Superfund listing continues to rage around the closed Rayonier mill in Port Angeles, WA across from Victoria [See Mill Watch, Feb/Mar 1999 Port Angeles Mill Declared Superfund Toxic Site]
Recently, the Olympic Environmental Council (OEC) learned that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will not recommend the dioxin-PCB-heavy metal laden areas for the Superfund National Priority List and that the Lower Elwha Tribe will have to deal with the WA State Department of Ecology (DOE) if it wants any clean up for the Port Angeles Harbor-Strait and Ennis Creek sediments. These water bodies are the Tribe's subsistence and commercial fishing grounds and their ancestral burial grounds.
OEC feels that Rayonier's pollution is an opportunity to force EPA to deal with a major dioxin cleanup. They filled pages of reasons DOE should not be allowed to oversee the cleanup, including conflict of interest as they for decades allowed Rayonier to pollute the air, water, soil, wildlife and people of the region. OEC believes that DOE wants this site because Rayonier has offered them money to do the cleanup. If the area became a Superfund site, Rayonier would have to pay the bill incurred from 1997 to now. If the site is not Superfund listed, citizens, through state taxes, will be partially responsible for the cleanup bill.
According to OEC, not one elected federal and state official will meet or speak with the many Superfund Petitioners. They also refused to read a single document about the contamination. However, most met with the opposition and support the DOE.
OEC is calling for the public to pressure both federal and state representatives to agree to Superfund designation for the Rayonier mill site.
* For action information, contact Darlene Schanfald, Olympic Environmental Council, 3632 O'Brien Rd, Port Angeles WA 98362 or email darlenes@olympus.net
Pacifica Paper's Powell River recovery boiler will keep on burning in this coastal British Columbia town. A stay pending the permit appeal has been denied.
Seven persons in Powell River BC had registered appeals with the Environmental Appeal Board against the October 20 1998 amendment of Pacifica Papers (previously Macmillan Bloedel) air emissions permit issued under BC's Waste Management Act. The appellants asked for a stay of the old permit which would have effectively shut down that boiler and through that kraft pulp production at that mill.
The Powell River Pulp and Paper mill, built in 1912, has had a kraft line since 1967 but also produces ground-wood pulp and TMP. The mill's air emissions permit PA03149 specifies in its 1995 and 1997 amendments that the recovery boiler should operate at 'Level A' standards as of January 1 1999. No action was taken by the company to upgrade the recovery boiler until the fall of 1998. In fact, that the boiler can be made to comply, even given an extension in time, is not certain.
Before considering upgrades, the company attempted to obtain a 'Ministerial variance' to avoid the Level A permit conditions. And, because the kraft mill would not comply with the year 2002 zero AOX (absorbable organo-chlorines) effluent law, the company did not see the recovery boiler as worthy of investment. The coastal pulp and paper industry is lobbying in British Columbia to have the AOX laws altered.
The Minister of Environment refused the variance and the company applied for an amended permit in August and announced a recovery boiler upgrade. Although the complete upgrade path for the boiler is not fully specified, a schedule whereby the boiler will meet Level A standards for the stack parameters total reduced sulphur (TRS) and particulate, was approved in the permit amendment of October 20 1998.
The major ground of appeal is that Level A standards should have been met on time. There is a background of air quality and pollution issues in Powell River and there have been appeals and related actions before.
The Board accepted the potential of harm but did not see sufficient evidence to order a stay. The Board in its decision said that they were ... satisfied that the appeal raises serious issues about the impact of TRS and PM10 emissions on human health and the environment ... While odour is considered to be the primary concern about TRS, the Panel is satisfied that the effects of the odour itself may represent a serious issue to be tried, and that in any event, high concentrations of TRS may also have negative health and environmental impacts." The company and the Regional Waste Manager had submitted that guidelines for ambient TRS were for aesthetic purposes only.
The appellants have also argued a 20ug/m3 pm10 threshold of harm rather than the 50ug/m3 level which is the more 'official' criteria in the province. The Board neither accepted nor rejected this criteria so far.
No dates are yet set for hearings. The appellants, familiar with the company's stall tactics, will if need be apply again for a stay.