by Eric Nelson

The Free Press

When Rayonier Corp. announced the closure of its Port Angeles pulpmill last fall, the company cynically blamed the closure on the spotted owl. One company press release said, "the mill has struggled primarily because of high wood costs due to regional harvest reductions to protect the spotted owl." When the plant closed in February, it laid off 350 workers.

But blaming the owl was easier than admitting that the plant had become an outdated, toxic liability.

The plant, which consistently ranked as Washington's number one air polluter (3.6 million pounds of sulfur dioxide in 1993), has left a toxic legacy that will soon become one of the state's biggest cleanup challenges.

"The paper-pulp industry runs their facilities into the ground, and the Rayonier plant is not that unusual," said Laurie Valeriano of the Washington Toxics Coalition.

"They were simply not in a position to be competitive. It became a dinosaur."

Now that the hue and cry over lost jobs has quieted, some Port Angeles residents are trying to ensure an adequate level of cleanup and oversight at the mill. Little analysis has been conducted of the contaminates at the site, and community groups and environmental organizations are concerned about toxic dust settling over the town once demolition begins.

"Our main concern there is that there is great potential for toxic contaminants to be spread throughout the city," said Valeriano.

Of equal concern are two nearby landfills used by the mill. The landfills, which have not received thorough analysis of their contents, apparently contain boiler ash, sludges, PCBs and heavy metals from the mill. Ash from pulp mills is known to contain high levels of dioxin.

The landfills are located adjacent to residential areas in Port Angeles, but no groundwater testing has been performed yet. One of the landfills is partially lined, and the other is unlined, causing concern for groundwater and nearby streams. A city hearing examiner recently denied Rayonier's request to bring demolition wastes to one of the landfills, which has the potential for landslides.

The plant, which consistently ranked as Washington's number one air polluter... will soon become one of the state's biggest cleanup challenges.

Although the mill provided jobs, it was not exactly a good neighbor in Port Angeles. Port Angeles residents have complained about air quality and health problems for years, said Darlene Schanfald, a community activist and member of the Olympic Environmental Council.

Nor was the plant any kinder to the Strait of Juan de Fuca. According to a recent report by People for Puget Sound, the plant discharged 35 million gallons of treated effluent into the strait every day. The effluent was generated though the production of bleached acetate, cellophane, and rayon. Since 1989, the plant was cited by state regulators for nine water quality violations totaling $23,500.

The plant was also subject to frequent state and federal fines for air quality violations.

But overall, state regulation of the mill was lax, say observers. Environmental groups and Port Angeles citizens are concerned that the state will not enforce a thorough cleanup.

Many in Port Angeles have grown to distrust the Department of Ecology.

"If they did such a good job with oversight, why was Rayonier consistently ranked as the state's number one polluter?" asked Schanfald.

The state Department of Ecology recently announced that Rayonier's cleanup will not be "independent," but the terms of oversight have yet to be negotiated.

Schanfald is concerned that the terms of a "consent decree" between Rayonier and the state will not provide sufficient community protection.

Several Port Angeleans have submitted paperwork asking that the federal Environmental Protection Agency declare the mill and its landfills as a Superfund site. That would impose retroactive liability on Rayonier, and its former parent, ITT Corp., which spun off Rayonier several years ago to jettison its investment in the paper business.

In addition, the federal Agency for Toxic Substances Disease Registry will be commencing a health study in Port Angeles this summer.

If EPA leaves the site to the state Ecology Department, it will likely be regulated under the state Model Toxics Control Act, a state analogue to Superfund. However, according to Schanfald, the state law was recently watered down by the legislature to allow for toxic cleanups without agency oversight.

According to Laurie Valeriano of the Toxics Coalition, when Rayonier closed a pulp mill in Hoquiam in the early 1990s, there was little cleanup and poor state oversight.

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Contents this page were published in the July/August, 1997 edition of the Washington Free Press.
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