EPA Toughening Rules on Paper-Mill Emissions
11/14/97
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Headline: EPA Toughening Rules on Paper-Mill Emissions
Source: The Associated Press
Date: 11/14/97
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Environmental Protection
Agency is moving to decrease the poisonous
chemicals and foul odors coming from pulp and paper
mills.
The tougher air and water pollution controls,
scheduled to be announced by the EPA today, follow
nearly five years of discussions aimed at getting
the industry to reduce its use of chlorine in the
bleaching process.
In anticipation of the new requirements, many paper
mills already have shifted to the less-polluting
bleaching method, although not abandoning chlorine
use altogether as some environmental groups have
sought.
Chlorine can produce dioxins, a family of chemicals
that cause cancer and a variety of neurological and
other medical problems in humans once they enter
the food chain. Scientists have found significant
levels of dioxins in fish near pulp and paper
mills.
The new regulations call on the industry to replace
the use of elemental chlorine with chlorine dioxide
for bleaching, reducing dioxin discharges into
waterways by 96 percent, according to EPA sources
involved in writing the regulation.
Administration officials characterized the
pollution controls, which will cost companies $1.9
billion, as the toughest ever imposed on the pulp
and paper industry. But many environmentalists said
the rules do not go far enough because they will
not eliminate chlorine use altogether.
According to agency sources, the new regulations
also will require pulp mills to install new
equipment over the next three years that will cut
the amount of other chemicals released into the
air, including sulfur, organic compounds and fine
dust. Sulfur, which causes the foul odor near pulp
plants, will have to be cut in half.
EPA spokeswoman Loretta Ucelli described the new
rules ``the toughest national controls ever on
pollution into the air and water from pulp and
paper mills.''
But a number of environmental groups complained
that the EPA was backtracking from a more stringent
chlorine proposal offered in 1993 in favor of a
compromise that critics contend was largely
fashioned by the industry.
``This is not only a weak rule, it's what the paper
industry lobbied to get,'' said Rick Hind, a
spokesman for Greenpeace, which has campaigned for
years for chlorine-free pulp mills.
``These new standards would reflect what most mills
are doing anyway. It doesn't push the industry
forward,'' added Todd Robins of the U.S. Public
Interest Research Group. ``This is a broken
promise.''
The 1993 proposal would have required mills to
abandon chlorine altogether and use oxygenation and
other procedures for bleaching, a process already
used in Europe.
The American Forest and Paper Association and
several major paper companies have argued the use
of chlorine dioxide will cut dioxin discharges to
nonmeasurable levels at far less cost.
In justifying its rejection of the 1993 proposal,
the EPA argued that the shift from elemental
chlorine to chlorine dioxide will cost $1.9 billion
while cutting dioxin discharges by 96 percent. The
totally chlorine-free bleaching process would cost
$2.9 billion in capital costs and reduce dioxin
releases only an additional 1 percentage point, or
97 percent.
Environmentalists dispute the EPA's cost
comparison, saying they consider only capital
expenses and not the lower cost of operating a
chlorine-free mill. If both capital and operating
costs are taken into account, the overall long-term
costs to the industry would be similar, they argue.
A number of large U.S. paper companies, including
Georgia Pacific and International Paper, already
use chlorine dioxide for bleaching as do many mills
in Europe. However, many mills still use elemental
chlorine, which produces much higher levels of
dioxin.
``Our view is that there's no difference in the
environmental or health results between the two
options (considered by the EPA), but that one
option costs $1 billion more,'' said Barry Polsky,
a spokesman for the American Forest and Paper
Association.