PT mill's discharge permit, expired in 2009, now up for public review
A 33-acre pond – also known as an aerated stabilization basin – at the Port Townsend Paper Corp. is up for review this spring.
It is considered a source of odor that some in Port Townsend find offensive and others say is “the smell of a paycheck.” PT Paper has the largest industrial secondary waste permit in Jefferson County.
Allison Arthur, assistant editor
The first in a series of stories on the Port Townsend Paper Corp.’s proposed new discharge permit.
It’s affectionately called “the pond” at the Port Townsend Paper Corp. and less affectionately referred to as “the thing that stinks” by people who live near it or pass by it.
It is the largest industrial wastewater treatment plant in Jefferson County.
And starting April 24, paper company officials and the community have an opportunity to start discussing what conditions should apply to what is technically an aerated stabilization basin (ASB), when the state Department of Ecology issues a draft National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Waste Discharge Permit.
A public workshop and hearing follow, with comments taken through June 21.
The mill’s discharge permit, last written in 2004, expired in 2009. A new draft contains new requirements for monitoring groundwater, monitoring sediment under the outfall and well as studying the efficiency of the pond. These requirements are now up for public review, including at a public hearing likely to occur in late May or early June.
The mill’s permit to use, reuse, treat and then discharge more than 12 million gallons of water daily into Port Townsend Bay is likely to be controversial.
Both the PT AirWatchers and the Port Townsend Citizen Watchdogs, two organizations that have been critical of the mill’s practices, have been eyeing the state’s progress on the permit review for months.
It is the third permit in four years that Jefferson County’s largest private employer has had to review with the public watching and commenting.
A permit to build a $55 million electric-generating biomass project, approved by the DOE in 2010, has been appealed by a group of environmentalists to the state Supreme Court.
A permit to continue to operate a 23-acre landfill, contested in 2012, is headed to the state Pollution Control Hearings Board in August.
Jefferson County and the DOE joined hands and want the mill to seek a more environmentally stringent permit; the mill is happy with a permit it’s had for years that doesn’t require testing or proof it has the financial means to close the landfill once its full.
And now comes the discharge permit, a permit some believe is caused by the treatment pond.
Discharge permit delay
Although the mill’s discharge permit expired in 2009, both the DOE and the mill agree that the mill applied for a renewal on time.
“It’s a standard renewal,” said Kevin Scott, the paper company's new environmental director. “We applied in 2009 and Ecology is finally getting caught up with paperwork.”
“They regulate a lot of stuff. They are some busy people.”
Garin Schrieve, DOE industrial section manager who is in charge of the permit, said the permit has been routinely issued since national pollution laws were enacted in the 1970s.
Those permits typically are reviewed every five years.
“In this case, this permit was last written in 2004,” Schrieve said. “It should have been renewed in 2009 provided we had the resources.”
State officials say they didn’t have the resources and so didn’t review the permit until now.
DOE spokeswoman Lind Kent said it is not unusual for an expired permit to be extended. She likened it to a home lease that expires and converts to a month-to-month lease.
“We wish we could rewrite every permit before it’s expired,” Kent said.
The NPDES is under the federal Clean Water Act. Washington has an agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to administer the program and oversee permits.
“If it’s not reissued in five years, provided the company had made an application for renewal on time, the permit stays in effect until it’s rewritten,” Schrieve said of where the permit is now.
So, until the permit is rewritten, which is happening now, the permit that was written almost a decade ago is still in effect.
Largest discharge
The draft permit spells out discharge limitations for pollutants into Port Townsend Bay. By volume, it is the largest permit of six in Jefferson County.
“Port Townsend Paper Company is the largest discharger by volume of six permittees in Jefferson County. Their average daily discharge is 12 million gallons,”
Schrieve said. “The City of Port Townsend is the next largest discharger in the county with an average discharge of around 1.4 million gallons per day."
Other permit holders include Fort Flagler State Park, New Day Fisheries, located at the Port of Port Townsend, Olympic Corrections Center in West Jefferson County and the Port Ludlow Wastewater Treatment Plant.
Although a new discharge permit wasn’t reissued in 2009, the mill continued to monitor and comply with the requirements of the old permit, Schrieve said.
And DOE has been conducting on-site inspections. It did three inspections in 2012 and did sampling as part of an inspection on Aug. 1, 2012, officials said.
The mill was found out of compliance with its old permit 12 times since 2004.
A Leader story detailing those violations will be published later in this series.
Studies sought
Some of the changes in the new proposed draft permit include requirements for studies on the impact of the mill’s discharge of water on Port Townsend Bay.
“One of the things we do in permit reissuances is to look at the environmental data surrounding the discharge,” said Schrieve.
In this case, DOE is proposing to require the mill to conduct a “receiving water study” at its discharge location, which is about 1,200 feet from the shoreline, out in Port Townsend Bay.
The data would be used to help determine if the water quality standards are being met.
In addition, DOE wants a sediment impact analysis, which would require the mill to take samples of sediment around the outfall, 40 to 45 feet below the surface of the bay.
DOE also is asking for a study of groundwater impact associated with the treatment pond. The mill would be asked to study groundwater adjacent to and under the pond. Such testing has not been done before, Schrieve said.
Perhaps the most potentially controversial area of the permit involves the removal of sludge, or buildup, inside the pond. It is that buildup that could be contributing to what many people associate with “the smell.”
DOE is asking the mill to do an engineering study that looks at the pond's efficiency.
“We’ve asked for a treatment efficiency study before, but what we’re asking for that’s new is that we’re asking them in this study to look at how well the pond is treating those odorous compounds,” said Schrieve.
Odors associated with the pond could be produced by a number of different things, Schrieve said. It could be that the bacteria that eat the waste in the pond aren’t getting enough oxygen, or it could be decaying bacteria decomposing and producing hydrogen sulfide.
Some of the mill’s processes also produce odorous wastewater that are routed to the pond for treatment. So it could also be that compounds coming off the pond are contributing to the odor problems.
“I think the goal here is to determine how well the pond is destroying those smelly pollutants,” Schrieve said.
Mill and opponents
Up until 1971, effluent from the mill went straight into Port Townsend Bay, Scott said. Now, there is a primary treatment system as well as a secondary treatment system, which is what the pond does, he said.
Scott said the mill spent $3.5 million in 2005-2006 to upgrade the efficiency of the pond.
Although the pond holds 60 million gallons of water, it discharges an average of about 12 million gallons of water a day – roughly the same amount of water as it takes in each day.
In January, Scott said he didn’t know what changes might be included in a new discharge permit.
“You get a driver’s license in the state of Washington and every so often you have to renew it,” Scott said. “We have an operating permit for a water treatment system and you have to renew it every five years.”
Scott said the DOE’s Marc Heffner pays the mill unannounced calls and everything has to be ready for those spot inspections, including the pond.
“We might get a call from the gate house that Marc Heffner is here and he wants to come in,” Scott said. “If you knew the IRS could come into your home at any day and review your information, would you have it ready? We have to make sure it’s ready.”
Environmental watchdogs aren’t so sure the DOE or the mill have taken the public’s interest as seriously as Scott portrays.
Accountability
Gretchen Brewer, who founded PT AirWatchers, said she was told initially that air emissions from the pond are not regulated by the discharge permit, but that the pond itself, including what material goes into it, is covered by the discharge permit.
“Fumes from the ASB have not been included at all,” said Brewer. “I think it is very important. It gives us another piece of where are things being accounted for.
“If they aren’t accounting for air emissions from the pond in the air permit, then they should be accounting for them in the water permit. And likewise, if they aren’t accounting for sludge in the landfill permit, where are they accounting for it?”
Brewer, Dave McWethy and others say the mill hasn’t accounted for a lot of sources of pollution – and the discharge permit is where that could change.
Editor’s note: The Leader endeavors to follow this permit process as it did with a permit for the landfill in 2012.''
Source of REMOVED article
https://web.archive.org/web/20130423165340/http://ptleader.com/main.asp?SectionID=36&SubSectionID=55&ArticleID=33384
For more information on the Port Townsend stench and toxins in the air, check out
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Shut-Down-the-Port-Townsend-Paper-Mill/1600063010208886?skip_nax_wizard=true&ref_type=page_profile
https://www.facebook.com/groups/10150099332035319/
http://porttownsendpapermill.blogspot.com/
