What makes a good neighbor? If it is one that supports and enriches our community, are they entitled to bit of grace for being not quite practically perfect in every way? I believe so and that we …
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What makes a good neighbor? If it is one that supports and enriches our community, are they entitled to bit of grace for being not quite practically perfect in every way? I believe so and that we have one such valuable neighbor in the Port Townsend Paper Corp, which runs the mill.
All the press I read about the mill seems to be negative. I have heard our County Commissioners plan in public meetings for the mill one day closing. We have all read complaints about the smell that emanates from the mill. And a process currently ongoing for renewal of its wastewater permit has drawn concern.
I expect that none of us inhale as we near Glen Cove and think “wow, I would love to bottle that sulfurous smell to enjoy later!” But the odor is more than sulfur — approximately 300 jobs are included in that wafting aroma. Good jobs, many unionized, that pay living wages and benefits and that support the young people and families of which our community is so short. After all, Port Townsend is nearly the oldest community in our nation — beat out in the geriatric race only by The Villages in Florida, according to a July story in the Seattle Times. That is a trend that I believe threatens the quality and future viability of life in our community. We should be desperately trying to keep such manufacturing jobs rather than shepherding them out the door.
As for that odor, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry conducted an investigation of contaminants in air near the mill in the fall of 2018. The results of the investigation were published by the Agency on June 24. (See “Report inspects mill stench,” The Leader, July 16.)
The report notes that breathing individual sulfur compounds in air near the mill were unlikely to cause adverse effects, but that “exposure to the mixture of contaminants may cause occasional acute respiratory effects.” For example, the report noted that “Sulfur dioxide concentrations near [the mill] rarely reached levels that can cause acute respiratory effects. Chronic exposure to sulfur dioxide is not expected to harm people’s health.” It similarly concluded that each of the other individual airborne contaminates studied (hydrogen sulfide, particulate matter, aldehydes) were “not expected to harm people’s health.”
The kraft paper process that I studied as a chemical engineering undergrad is indeed “stinky.” But the federal agency tasked with evaluating the mill’s airborne safety profile resulting from this process did not find significant health risks. I have read that some living close to the mill who are particularly sensitive and do suffer respiratory distress. I am sympathetic to those concerns. But there is a legal doctrine called “coming to the nuisance,” which essentially provides that if you move proximate to a known existing “nuisance” you do not have an actionable basis to complain about it. I suspect few of our community members have lived in the vicinity of the mill since before its 1927 founding.
A public meeting held Dec. 4 by representatives of the Washington Department of Ecology concerned a draft renewal of the mill’s national wastewater discharge permit. Its last permit expired in 2018. The Department is proposing increased monitoring for the presence of three carcinogenic hydrocarbons in the wastewater. They are indeed serious compounds and I am pleased that the Department is taking their assessment seriously. The Department also proposes commencement of monitoring for fluorinated “forever chemicals” (PFAS) in the wastewater. It was noted that the mill does not apply PFAS to their product but that such compounds could be introduced into the process from recycled paper feed stock.
While the Department was attacked at that meeting as the “fox watching the henhouse,” I was assured and grateful for its oversight.
I personally take seriously the harmful role that carcinogens, forever chemicals and micro-plastics play in our ecosystem and health, and try assiduously to limit my exposure to the same. We’ve ditched the use of pesticides and herbicides, Teflon®-coated pans, plastic cutting boards, and the like in our house. I yearn for the days when our foodstuffs and other goods were packaged in cardboard, waxed paper and cellophane instead of plastic. But think on from where that cardboard and paper comes. It is from mills like “our” mill in Port Townsend, or it is shipped overseas from mills that operate in countries with much lower environmental oversite. Our mill is also critical to the paper recycling stream.
There are no perfect answers here. But it is clear that the mill provides many benefits to our community, and it should be lauded, supported, and worked with to continue to provide the economic benefits and products we need while striving to improve the process by which it operates.
Marcia Kelbon is an attorney and engineer based in Quilcene.