Group wants new DEQ requirements enacted for G-P Toledo mill



Concerns about clean air on the central Oregon coast has led a local nonprofit group to ask the Oregon Environmental Quality Commission (EQC) to provide year-round ambient air monitoring and air testing for dioxins around the Georgia-Pacific mill in Toledo.

Representatives of Concerned Citizens for Clean Air (CCCA), based in Seal Rock, attended the Aug. 21 EQC session in Newport, where they urged commission members to find a way to quickly reduce or end burning of what they say is an average of 18.9 tons of plastics each day in the mill’s hog fuel boiler. That’s up from a previous estimate of 16.4 tons calculated earlier this summer derived from information provided by Gary Andes, permit writer for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).

Seal Rock resident Maxine Centala, a CCCA co-founder, said those findings were a direct result of the group’s persistence in asking DEQ officials about the issue, including requests dating back to 2005 and 2006 to require G-P to test the air for dioxins. “The question arose when we wondered what happened to all the tape from the cardboard boxes sent to G-P for recycling,” Centala said. “To their credit, DEQ eventually heard us and required that the plastic in the hog fuel be sampled, weighed, and analyzed.”

The group asked the EQC to provide regular monitoring of the ambient air, rather than rely on estimates derived from computer modeling to assess whether local air quality meets national standards.

“Though it’s illegal for an Oregon resident to burn plastic in a burn barrel, G-P is burning tons every day right in the town of Toledo,” said Tom Kerns, a Yachats resident who is on the CCCA board. “We asked DEQ staff in Salem what effect the emissions from burning plastic would have on the health of local residents, and they couldn’t tell us.”

Kerns said ambient air monitoring would provide coastal residents with an Air Quality Index, and with air pollution advisories they now lack.

“We need ambient air monitoring on the coast, not just because of the mill, but because there’s an asphalt plant in Newport, plus we get smoke from slash burns and trash burning, and vehicle emissions, especially diesel,” said Seal Rock resident and CCCA co-founder Diana Purdy. “The air belongs to all of us. We want it to be protected for future generations.”



Burning permit



DEQ classifies the mill as a small quantity hazardous waste generator. The air quality permit details the limits, as well as monitoring, testing, and recordkeeping requirements for the plant’s emissions.

The agency held two public hearings in 2005, when mill officials sought - and received - a five-year renewal of its Title V air quality permit, which determines limits on air pollutants emitted during the mill’s operations. Mill officials protested the request to require testing for dioxins, which DEQ initially considered, then shied away.

The requirement will take effect in July 2010, conditional on the percent of plastic mixed in with the hog fuel.

The mill requires massive amounts of steam for its operating processes, and the hog fuel boiler, installed in 1964, is one source of that steam (rated at 200,000 pounds of steam per hour). According to the DEQ permit review report, the boiler is permitted to “fire” what’s known as hogged fuel (wood and wood residue), natural gas, No. 6 residual oil or recycled oil, tire-derived fuel, old corrugated container rejects, reject wood pulp or fiber, spill pads and booms, used oil, difficult-to-recycle waste papers, tree clippings, other wood or yard debris and wood waste obtained through community recycling programs, and “other non-hazardous fuel supplements or wood waste after department approval.”

Waste from recycling cardboard comprises about 39 percent of the fuel burned in the hog fuel boiler.

G-P spokesman Tom Picciano said the company has a permit to burn what’s left after processing old corrugated containers (OCC) - used cardboard boxes - brought to the mill for recycling. They go through a process to glean out plastic, rocks, and other items.

“We take all the strapping off, and ideally we would be left with pure cardboard, but that doesn’t always happen,” he noted.

The OCC rejects can contain plastic when they go into the hog fuel boiler for combustion, but the burning is done under strict permit requirements, and Picciano said they do not knowingly violate those limits.

“We will shut the machine down if it does,” he added.

CCCA works for clean air on the central Oregon coast through education and collective action. For more information, go to www.concernedcitizensforcleanair.com.



Terry Dillman is the assistant editor of the News-Times. Contact him at (541) 265-8571, ext 225, or terrydillman@newportnewstimes.com.



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