The
Smell of Money: Mill Air and Water Emissions
An aerial view of Camas and the Fort James Mill. Courtesy of the
Camas-Washougal Historical Society
The new Kraft
mill ... while it has a tendency at times for emitting unsavory odors,
has a promising future in the commercial paper field. -- The Camas
Post, Sept. 23, 1927
Until the mill started changing and things, man, you could smell. I
mean our clothes smelled like that rotten eggs which was a process that
you don’t smell anymore. Sometimes you do. But over the years the mill
has cleaned all that up. -- Richard Kingsberry, Georgia Pacific employee,
2000 interview
In 1926, the Crown Willamette Paper Company began operating
a Kraft mill at their Camas site. Despite the strong odor -- compared
to that of decaying cabbage -- most people in the community welcomed the
new technology for its economic potential. In 1933 The Camas Post
proclaimed "we would ... prefer the situation as it is now -- plenty
of jobs and plenty of odor to a situation of no odor and no jobs."
Kraft and sulfite mills are known for their smell, which comes from the
output of chemicals (such as methyl mercaptans) produced during the process
of transforming wood into pulp. According to the Environmental Protection
Agency, the mill's Kraft and sulfite pulping process also emits harmful
air pollutants, such as formaldehyde, methanol, acetaldehyde, and methyl
ethyl keton.
The Kraft process produces dark brown paper, which mill employees originally
made into paper bags and other unbleached products. Other products, such
as tissues and napkins, were bleached with chlorine. In the last decade
scientists have determined that chlorine bleaching at pulp and paper mills
produces toxic chemicals known as dioxins and furans. These chemicals,
along with other toxins, are in lower Columbia River sediment at levels
high enough to be linked to reproductive failure in bald eagles, mink,
and river otters, according to the EPA's "Lower Columbia River Estuary
Plan." The Washington Department of Ecology reported in its 1997
annual Toxic Release Inventory that the Georgia Pacific mill in Camas
was among the state's four top toxic polluters for manufacturing facilities.
A 1999 report by the state Department of Ecology found that the Camas
mill was the third largest state polluter during that year, releasing
1.68 million pounds of chemicals. The report also said that the mill did
not violate state or federal permits regulating releases.
Since 1980, mill ownership has spent as much as a quarter
of a billion dollars upgrading the 117-year-old mill. New EPA "cluster"
rules require pulp and paper mills to significantly reduce air and water
emissions. The Fort James Corporation installed a steam scrubbing system
at the Camas mill that strips pollutants from the pulping process and
incinerates them. In addition, the scrubber reduces 80-90 per cent of
the mill's smell.
As required by EPA rules, mill owners have also been working
to reduce harmful water emissions. By summer 2001 the mill management
plans to eliminate the use of elemental chlorine in their bleaching process.
One of the company's three bleach lines now uses hydrogen peroxide to
lighten the paper products. Another is using chlorine dioxide. The third
bleach line will also use chlorine dioxide, which has a much lower potential
than elemental chlorine of producing dioxins and furans.
Georgia Pacific can discharge 0.046 ounces of dioxins daily under its
operating permit with the Washington State Department of Ecology. State
and federal permits also allow the mill to release a number of other chemicals.
Sometimes chemicals are accidentally released from the mill. In Feb. 2001,
a release into the air of methyl mercaptan, hydrogen sulfide, dimethyl
sulfide and dimethyl disulfide sickened fifty-two grade-school students.
Newspaper
article: "Local Kraft Pulp May Cut Imports"
1932 Newspaper
article: "C.W.P. Co. to Appeal $5,000
Hinz Judgment"
EPA
Fact Sheet: "The Pulp and Paper Industry, the Pulping Process,
and Pollutant Releases into the Environment"
EPA
Fact Sheet: "EPA's Final Pulp, Paper, and Paperboard
'Cluster Rule'"
Part I - The Cascade Indians & Early Town History
Part II - Mill Town
Part III - Growth and Change
Table
of Contents
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