PORT TOWNSEND — Port Townsend Paper Corp. no longer qualifies for an inert-waste permit for the landfill at its Port Townsend plant, according to final findings issued by the Jefferson County Public Health Department, and the company plans to appeal the decision.
“The waste stream generated by the pulp and paper mill . . . is capable of producing leachate or emissions that have the potential to negatively impact soil, groundwater, surface water or air quality and thus the PTPC waste stream cannot satisfy the criteria for inert waste,” concluded the report.
Posted on website
The report, signed by Jared Keefer, environmental health and water quality director for the department, and posted on the Health Department’s website Monday, was dated Dec. 28.
The final findings underlined earlier county rulings, and Port Townsend Paper officials repeated their intention to appeal it to the state Pollution Controls Hearing Board.
“We believe we have a very strong case,” said Port Townsend Paper President Roger Loney in an email.
“We will continue to pursue a resolution of this issue with the involvement of state and county officials as we seek to operate our facility in an environmentally responsible and economically sound manner,” he wrote.
The Dec. 28 formal denial of the permit starts the 30-day clock of the appeal process to the Pollutions Control Hearing Board.
Loney said the denial was not surprising, since it is largely a restatement of the department’s Oct. 17 decision.
Inert-waste permit
Port Townsend Paper — the county’s largest private employer, with nearly 300 workers — requested in September an extension of its inert-waste permit, which had been in effect since 1989.
The county health department said Oct. 17 that the company should be required to attain a more stringent limited-use permit.
The mill appealed the decision Oct. 22, triggering a Nov. 27 hearing to review the decision.
Dr. Tom Locke, public health officer for Jefferson and Clallam counties, issued a denial of the appeal Dec. 3.
At the hearing, mill officials presented testimony that the regulations and processes have not changed, so the permit should be renewed.
The county argued that the mill’s pH output and the presence of lime grit in that output exceed the accepted designation of inert.
In his denial, Locke expressed concerns about the changing nature of waste generated by the mill during operation of an expanded biomass cogeneration plant.
The $55 million, 24-megawatt biomass cogeneration expansion originally was expected to be put into operation this April, but work on the facility has been delayed until 2014 or 2015, the company said after a Dec. 10 state Court of Appeals ruling that sends a suit filed by five environmental groups to the state Supreme Court.
Suit filed
The suit — filed by PT Airwatchers, No Biomass Burn, the Olympic Environmental Council, the Olympic Forest Coalition and the World Temperate Rainforest Network — urges the requirement of an environmental impact statement prior to construction of the expanded facility that burns wood waste to create electricity.
Nippon Paper Industries USA Co. in Port Angeles also is expanding its biomass cogeneration facility to generate 20 megawatts in a $71 million project that’s slated for completion this year.
It also has been opposed by environmental groups who say that the facilities will increase pollution, especially of ultrafine particles that can lodge in the lungs.
To see the county health department’s final report on the Port Townsend Paper mill landfill permit, visit http://tinyurl.com/bfb77yf.
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Jefferson County Reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
