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No. 32 June 2001 News for All Interested in Featuring |
Search this site Campaigns Publications Technical  Pulp & Paper About Reach! Contact Us Links |
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No. 32 June 2001 News for All Interested in Featuring |
Search this site Campaigns Publications Technical Pulp & Paper About Reach! Contact Us Links |
MillWatch table of contents
MillWatch No. 32 - June 2001
About us
How to request brochures, subscribe, donate, or volunteer
(You may SEARCH this page using your browser's FIND command)
MillWatch is sponsored by Reach for Unbleached! Canada to connect people and provide resources for those working on pulp and paper issues. If you have information, experience, or problems you want to share, this forum is meant to spread the word, but it needs your help. Write to us!
Who is polluting in your neighbourhood? Find out at the click of a button. Odds are high it will be a pulp or paper mill.
A new unique Internet service now allows Canadian easy access to information about local polluters. By entering a postal code, visitors can find out who is polluting in their community, the type and quantity of pollution, and the potential health risks. PollutionWatch (www.pollutionwatch.org) merges information from approximately 300 databases to create instant rankings based on pollution loads and heath hazards for 2000 reporting facilities in Canada. Visitors can find street maps and immediately fax or email a letter of concern to the polluter or the government. Linked to the US "scorecard" site, PollutionWatch is a joint project of the Canadian Environmental Defence Fund, the Canadian Environmental Law Association, and the Canadian Institute for Environmental Law and Policy.
Be sure to read the "Data Cautions" section. Pollution Watch release figures are based on the National Pollution Release Inventory, which will not start to do audits of company reporting until next year. A technical audit has already revealed that the majority of pulp mills seriously under-report their releases.
* Delores Broten
Since July 1990, the BC Ministry of Environment has published a semi-annual report of pollution permit holders who have failed to abide by the limits of their permits. Regular non-compliance reporting is one of the very few glimpses the public gets into the environmental performance of BC companies and municipalities. Pulp mills, for example, are routinely in violation of their permits to pollute. They regularly exceed even the generous air and water pollution allowances that have been permitted by successive sympathetic governments.
Last fall, the Georgia Strait Alliance was informed that the report then due would be delayed for six months, and that this could signal a change to an annual reporting period. We have now been told that the report will be at least several more months coming, and will report for an 18 month period (October 1999 - March 2001). Pressed to commit to at least this deadline, a senior ministry official offered that the new government could conceivably do away with the reports all together. Although the information is largely compiled and prepared for release, political concerns have seen them shelved.
The Georgia Strait Alliance sees this development as a grievous injury to the public's right to know who is breaking the law with their pollution. In the absence of some other mechanism for reporting to the public the behaviour of corporate polluters, the current regime of reporting must be maintained.
Back issues of the non-compliance reports are available online at wlapwww.gov.bc.ca/epd/epdnon/index.html The non-compliance record of pulp mills summarized at www.rfu.org/Violations.htm
* Peter Ronald, Strait Talk, Georgia Strait Alliance, Summer 2001
Reach for Unbleached!, with the support of Environment Canada's EcoAction program, is launching a campaign to help clean up the Strait ahead of federal government regulations. The Georgia Strait Good Neighbour Challenge will see Reach for Unbleached!, local environmental activists, volunteer and government scientists, labour unions and mill managers work together to identify and address three to four priority pollutants entering the Georgia basin from pulp mills.
The Canadian Environmental Protection Act has a set of criteria and a process for listing chemicals as "toxic." Once a chemical makes the list, there can be up to a two year period before it is actually regulated in the real world. Reach for Unbleached! will harness the pollution concerns of local residents and the good intentions of our pulp mill neighbours to deal with some of these toxic pollutants ahead of schedule.
The process of choosing chemicals is well under way. Initial target lists have been developed and are being reviewed by scientific consultants. Environment managers from several mills are being interviewed about their top priorities and residents near Georgia Strait mills are being surveyed about their primary concerns.
Our goal is to identify chemicals that have a significant impact on the environment and are also things that the mills can reasonably be expected to eliminate, substitute or reduce. We want to work cooperatively to make a difference. If you work in or live near a mill and have a special concern, or if you are a manager at a mill interested in being a part of this effort, please contact Jay Ritchlin at 604-879-2992, or ritchlin@rfu.org. Take the Challenge!
Domtar Poised To Be No. 2 Fine Paper Maker In North America:
Now if they could just do something about that sludge.
Montreal-based Domtar is planning to buy four paper mills and their associated pulp units in the USA from Georgia Pacific Corporation. They hope to close the deal, which would see Domtar become the second largest producer of fine papers in North America, by the end of June 2001. Industry analysts speculate that the deal, estimated to be worth about $1.5 billion US, may require Domtar to sell its share in Norampac, a corrugated and containerboard interest, but will greatly improve the company's position in its core products; specialty fine papers which are used in applications like photocopy papers, magazines and advertising flyers.
Domtar makes Sandpiper, some of the best recycled, chlorine free papers on the market. Hopefully, the acquisition of approximately 1,250,000 tons of photocopy and niche fine-paper capacity will lead to increased availability and affordability of high quality, recycled and chlorine-free papers in the North American market.
Domtar, unfortunately, also has a history of environmental problems, especially with its solid waste sludge. MillWatch has reported several times (issues #21, 23, and 25) about problems with the sludge toxicity, the reliability of testing and the unsafe conditions surrounding its land application. In issue #17 we also reported that Domtar had argued in court that their pollution of a local waterway was irrelevant because the area was already dirty. This is not the behaviour of an environmentally responsible company.
The new resources and efficiencies realized in this acquisition should allow Domtar to improve both its market share, and the environmentally responsible production of its products. Then Domtar could become number one in North American clean paper production.
* Jay Ritchlin, with sources from Maureen Reilly, Delores Broten and Pulp and Paper International On-line.
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For the past 10 years, some farms in Brock, Ontario have been spread with paper mill sludge from the recycling mills in Scarborough and Whitby. The characteristic blue grey sludge was piled and spread as a waste-based "soil conditioner" under a Certificate of Approval from the Ministry of the Environment which has now expired.
But in Ontario, sludge that is spread on farmland must be demonstrated to be a benefit to agriculture. Tests conducted so far by researchers hired by Atlantic Packaging have had difficulty proving a benefit. It was established that the sludge did not detectably increase the organic content of the soil, and the low levels of nitrogen in the sludge caused problems with some crops, like corn, that have a high nitrogen requirement. According to Atlantic Packaging's Annual Report 2000, only 31 farm sites received sludge last year.
The Ministry of the Environment has received several reports from Atlantic Packaging and the waste hauler, Ontario Disposal. One of the reports suggests that soil that received the sludge holds water better and is "softer." Another report looks at the issue of "bioaerosols" in the sludge. Bioaerosols are toxic fragments of bacteria that can cause respiratory disease when inhaled.
The Ministry of the Environment, the Durham Health Unit, and environmental groups are now evaluating whether the sludge is a net benefit to the soil and whether there are environmental or health risks associated with its use. Residents who wish to make their views known can send in their comments to the Ontario Minister of the Environment, Elizabeth Witmer.
As the "Soil Enrichment" program seems to be winding down, Ontario Disposal has been providing the sludge in huge mountains of 20,000 to 50,000 tonnes to gun clubs with target practice ranges. New federal regulation requires berms around gun clubs. Gun clubs, including Orillia, Oshawa, Silverdale, and Madoc, have all received mountains of Atlantic Packaging sludge. Sand or soil and non-compliant compost and demolition debris may be mixed in at the site. The whole mixture has been named "SoundSorb" by the hauler, who now insists that it is a product and therefore not regulated as a waste.
In May the firm was ordered to remove 20,000 cubic metres of paper sludge from a Madoc hunt club to stop contamination of a neighbouring wetland. The sludge was dumped without a permit from the Quinte Conservation Authority. A neighbouring well began to show coliform, and neighbours complained. Concerned residents near these sludge berms are asking questions about the impact of these piles of decomposing mill waste on their ground water and drinking wells.
* Belleville Intelligencer 2001, Maureen Reilly
In early May the US government filed a claim against Maine's Lincoln Pulp and Paper Co. for $60 million in damages for dioxin contamination of the Penobscot River. The claim was filed in bankruptcy court by the US Department of Justice on behalf of the Penobscot Nation, the US EPA and the US Department of the Interior. The mill's parent company, Eastern Pulp & Paper, filed for bankruptcy in December.
The government says in the claim that the Indians have suffered from the loss of sustenance fishing and culture due to the pollution of the river with dioxin and other hazardous substances. "The debtor's actions have injured the health, comfort and property of the Penobscot Nation by rendering the water of the Penobscot River unwholesome or impure for fishing and other cultural enjoyment," the Justice Department wrote.
* Bangor Daily News, May 2001
As part of the clean up of the former Ketchikan pulp mill, about 30 acres of the ocean floor in Ward Cove Alaska is being cleaned. Rotting logs are being pulled out of the sediment, the sea bed dredged, and in some places the area is covered with clean sand from Victoria BC.
The Ketchikan mill operated at the site for over 50 years. The clean up will cost $3 to $4 million, paid by Louisiana Pacific, and was scheduled to be completed before the March salmon run.
* Ketchikan Daily News, March 2001