The Port Townsend Paper Corp. (PTPC) has embarked on the process of getting a new permit to operate that would limit the amount of dangerous chemicals flowing into area waterways and would add additional testing measures, according to the draft 147-page proposed permit.

Depending on the outcome of a state environmental review and public comment period, including a Dec. 4 hearing at Fort Worden, the mill could face a new set of requirements, among them, testing for the discharge of “forever chemicals,” or PFAS, and the undertaking of an odor minimization study.

“PTPC does not include PFAS in the manufacture of any of our products,” wrote Laurie Magan, communications coordinator for the paper mill, in an email to The Leader. “At such time as additional screening is required, PTPC will collect and submit the required samples to a regulated third-party laboratory for testing. Those results will be public record just as all of our permit submittals.”

PTPC operates an unbleached pulp and paper mill in Port Townsend. Pulp is produced by both the chemical Kraft process and from the repulping of old corrugated cardboard. The pulp is sold or used on-site to make paper products, such as linerboard for cardboard boxes.

Wastewater discharges from the mill, which have been going on for more than 100 years, are regulated by the Environmental Protection Agencing through the state Department of Ecology. The proposed requirements and testing are part of the state’s review of the mill’s Draft National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit.

The Clean Water Act prohibits anybody from discharging “pollutants” through a “point source” into a “water of the United States” unless they have an NPDES permit.

The permit contains limits on what can be discharged, monitoring and reporting requirements, and other provisions to ensure that the discharge does not hurt water quality or people’s health. In essence, the permit translates general requirements of the Clean Water Act into specific provisions tailored to the operations of each person or entity discharging pollutants.

Ecology issued the existing mill’s current NPDES permit on Sept. 16, 2013. The existing NPDES permit expired on Oct. 1, 2018 and was administratively extended via a letter from Ecology dated April 6, 2018.

Dangerous chemicals

The mill’s existing permit lists no water-quality-based effluent limits for benzo(a)anthracene, chlordane and pentachlorophenol. The draft permit imposes new limits on these chemicals.

According to the World Health Organization and National Institutes of Health, benzo(anthracene) may cause cancer and is “very toxic to aquatic life with long lasting effects.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Chlordane is a man-made chemical used from 1948 to 1988 as a pesticide on agricultural crops, lawns, gardens, and homes. Because of concerns about damage to the environment and harm to human health, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) banned all uses of chlordane in 1983 except to control termites. In 1988, the EPA banned all uses.

According to the EPA, Chlordane does not dissolve easily in the water and will stick to the sediment at the bottom of water bodies. Chlordane in the environment breaks down slowly. It can build up in fish, birds and land animals.

Pentachlorophenol was once one of the most widely used biocides in the United States, but it is now a restricted use pesticide and is no longer available to the general public. It was primarily used as a wood preservative. According to the EPA, Pentachlorophenol is extremely toxic to humans from acute (short-term) ingestion and inhalation exposure and is listed as a probable human carcinogen. 

Four years to meet limits

The draft permit would also require new studies of pollutants in Port Townsend Bay, sediment monitoring near the company’s dock which receives wood chips, requirements to minimize spills of pulping liquors, and turpentine, to the wastewater treatment plant, an odor minimization study and other items.

The draft permit gives PTPC until four years from the effective date to be able to comply with the new limits. Interim performance-based limits for these pollutants are effective on the day the permit is effective. PTPC must provide the Department of Ecology annual progress reports throughout the permit cycle as they reduce amounts of these pollutants discharged.

PTPC operates a large industrial wastewater treatment plant and a small sanitary wastewater treatment plant that discharge treated wastewater into Port Townsend Bay. Limits at the sanitary plant are the same in the current permit and the proposed draft permit.

Since the issuance of the previous NPDES permit, PTPC has shut down the Messing-Durkee digester which generated kraft pulp from sawdust. The paper company also switched from a batch process to a continuous process. This change has increased the maximum capacity of the plant from 480 oven-dried tons of pulp per day to 720 oven-dried tons per day.

A public hearing on the draft permit is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. on Dec. 4 at the Fort Worden USO Building (Building 326) located at 200 Battery Way E. in Port Townsend. State officials will also take comments by mail.

Written comments can be sent to the Department of Ecology headquarters in Lacey.

The comment period closes on at 11:59 a.m. on Dec. 12. Once the comment period ends, state officials will conduct a review and make a final decision.