Local paper mill cleans up its act

Published in The Post-Star (A1)
9/4/06

Editors note: This is the second in an occasional series about the relationship between industry, public health and the environment in our region.

For more than a century, the Finch, Pruyn & Co. paper mill has been pumping money and jobs into the local economy.

It's also been pumping what the Environmental Protection Agency refers to as "toxic releases" into the air and water, earning it a consistently high spot on the list of the state's top pollluters -- but times are changing.

Globalization and other changes in the paper industry have thinned the forest of profits for Finch Pruyn in recent years, prompting the company's board to announce in June that it is seeking to sell the Glens Falls mill.

The mill has also been experiencing a downturn of a more positive kind, however.

Since 1998, when the EPA's Toxic Releases Inventory ranked Finch Pruyn as the second-biggest polluter in the state, the mill has reduced the amount of toxic chemicals it releases to the environment by 88 percent.

In the EPA's most recent statewide rankings, based on 2004 data, Finch Pruyn fell to 9th on the list, and 2005 data points to a further reduction.

"With all types of chemical releases, Finch Pruyn's goal is continual improvement ... and it's a continual learning process," said company spokesperson John Brodt. "Our goal is to get them down lower and lower."

Nagging nitrates

The majority of the mill's toxic releases are "nitrate compounds," which Brodt said are a natural byproduct of the company's wastewater treatment process. The mill uses ammonia as the main ingredient in the process that turns wood chips into pulp to make paper, he explained.

Although Finch Pruyn still releases about 80,000 pounds of ammonia into the river and air each year, that number was much higher before the mill built its existing wastewater treatment plant about 30 years ago.

"The bacteria in the treatment plant attack the ammonia and convert it to nitrate compounds, which are generally considered a more environmentally benign substance than ammonia," Brodt said.

About eight years ago, the company began striving to minimize its nitrate releases as well. It's complicated, said Brodt, but basically, limiting the amount of oxygen in the wastewater forces some of the liquid nitrates to convert to nitrogen gas, which is not on the EPA's inventory of toxic pollutants.

The effort has been highly successful -- Finch Pruyn's most recent report to the EPA shows a total nitrates release of 396,070 pounds in 2005, less than half of what it reported the previous year.

"It's a biological process, and it's not possible for the bacteria to convert all of the nitrate to nitrogen gas, but we do whatever we can to make it as efficient as possible," Brodt said.

Cleaner chlorine

In the past decade, Finch Pruyn has also cleaned up its manufacturing process by converting the bleaching process from "elemental chlorine" to chlorine dioxide, a few years before such a change was mandated by the EPA.

According to an EPA fact sheet, chronic exposure to organic compounds formed by chlorine in drinking water have been linked to bladder and rectal cancer, while exposure to chlorine gas can cause serious respiratory problems.

Chlorine dioxide is considered less harmful, although it can still form highly toxic compounds called dioxins, unlike other bleaching technologies that are totally chlorine-free.

"All of these things are a balancing act ... balancing environmental protection with the public's demand for bright white paper," Brodt said.

What's that smell?

Most people who live or work near Finch Pruyn have experienced the strong smell the paper mill can produce on certain days -- it's been compared to everything from rotten eggs to hotdogs.

The probable source of the odor, Brodt said, is sulfuric acid, a byproduct of fuel combustion.

Although Finch Pruyn has its own hydroelectric facility on the Hudson River, it's not always enough to meet the mill's power needs. Some days, the mill also burns wood chips and bark, natural gas, or fuel oil, which produce byproducts including sulfuric acid (71,000 pounds in 2004) and hydrochloric acid (28,000 pounds in 2004).

Any of those could be associated with a smell, Brodt said.

"It's difficult to pinpoint ... but certainly we strive to minimize odors as much as possible," he said, adding that residents may call Finch Pruyn at any time to complain or inquire about a particular odor, and a representative will investigate and respond as soon as possible.

Something in the air

Despite the "scrubbers" in the stacks of Finch Pruyn's mill, some chemicals inevitably escape.
One of the highest-volume air emissions included on the mill's Toxic Releases Inventory for 2004 was methanol, which Brodt said is primarily a byproduct of the pulping process. Finch Pruyn released 75,000 pounds of methanol into the air in 2004, in addition to 94,200 pounds released in wastewater.

An EPA fact sheet states that chronic methanol exposure has been linked to headaches, vision problems and gastric disturbances in humans, and to certain developmental disorders and birth defects in animals.

As Brodt pointed out, however, the Toxic Releases Inventory is a limited tool -- it does not include information about human exposure levels, or how a chemical may be diluted or changed in the outside environment.

"Obviously, Finch Pruyn and all other manufacturers reporting this data have all their permits in place," he said. "Questions about risk would have to be directed to the EPA or DEC."
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