NDCA

Sunday, January 06, 2008

Could a Lufkin industry that provided thousands of local jobs in the last century be the origin of lake-area illnesses this century?

The possibility of toxins having leaked out of the paper mill’s landfill into the recharge zone for the aquifer that supplies drinking water to Zavalla is at the forefront of several potential pollution sources being considered by the Concerned Citizens of Zavalla.

The Zavalla group organized after the second diagnosis of a childhood brain tumor in two years. For years the community has questioned the number of cancer diagnoses and chronic illnesses arising from the small community at the edge of the Angelina National Forest.

The group’s goal is to investigate potential pollution sources and create a local cancer database documenting the number and types of cancer cases to prove that the number is higher than normal and worth investigation by the federal Centers for Disease Control. Two precursory cancer cluster investigations conducted by the state of Texas prior to the second brain tumor diagnosis showed no unusual cancer activity.

Limited water sampling

Testing the water is the simplest way to start eliminating possible sources of community health problems, Zavalla city and school officials told the Concerned Citizens of Zavalla last month, at the group’s first meeting.

“I don’t think we will identify the sources,” said retired NASA engineer Walt West, who lives off Sam Rayburn Reservoir. He said the problem is probably “synergistic” a combined effect of toxic pollutants on the body. “But dioxin plays a big role.”

West spoke to the Zavalla group last month about dioxin, heavy metals and other hazardous waste produced and released by the Lufkin paper mill throughout the last century.

The Lufkin paper mill, outside Loop 287 on state Highway 103 east of Lufkin, is one of several area industries that sits atop the recharge zone for the Yegua-Jackson minor aquifer that supplies Zavalla’s water, according to the Texas Water Development Board.

Other possible industrial sources of contamination will be examined in upcoming stories.

The paper mill landfill covers about 150 acres, according to AbitibiBowater public affairs director Debbie Johnston.

“It is not possible to calculate the volume” of it, she said. “Solid wastes from paper manufacturing activities have been disposed of on-site at the Lufkin mill since its inception in 1940, and those earlier residues were materially the same as what continued to be landfilled until the mill’s idling in December of 2003. The existing landfilling operations were initiated in the late 1960s.

“The mill’s on-site landfill is limited to non-hazardous industrial solid wastes,” she said, adding that the mill provides the state with a list of everything sent to the landfill.

“The vast majority of material placed in the landfill consists of bio-solids from the paper-making process, office trash, construction waste, boiler ash and spent lime,” she said.

West disagrees with the TCEQ designation of “nonhazardous waste,” considering dioxin was a common by-product of the paper-making process that the EPA observed building up in fish tissue downstream of many of the nation’s paper mills in the 1980s and infiltrating the groundwater near the plants. As dioxin is now believed to cause cancer and birth defects, the EPA and the Food and Drug Administration began regulating dioxin releases into the environment in 1990.

“Of greatest concern to EPA is the need to reduce levels of dioxin discharged from pulp and paper mills into rivers and streams,” states an EPA advisory.

The Lufkin paper mill generated sludge containing dioxin from its start-up through November 2002, when it changed its bleaching process during a facility-wide modernization, said Terry Clawson, TCEQ spokesman.

The plant was idled a year later.

Regardless of concerns expressed by those in Zavalla, dioxin was not included in recent tests contracted out by TCEQ, Clawson said.

“The State of Texas has given a statewide waiver for monitoring the only dioxin regulated (2,3,7,8 — TCDD, known as the pesticide DEET) by the state and federal public drinking water programs,” Clawson said. “We must be judicious with this monitoring because few labs analyze for this dioxin and analysis is expensive.”

Dioxin tests cost about $2,500 a sample, according to Dr. Neil Carman, Clean Air program director for the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club.

Carman said the Texas Legislature cripples its environmental agency by restricting dollars for overseeing industries the size of the Lufkin paper mill. It’s a mentality of “If we don’t want to find it, we don’t look for it,” said Carman, who worked at TCEQ for 12 years.

“But that’s inexcusable,” he said. “It’s a very harmful carcinogen. They should be looking for dioxin because it can survive in the environment for decades.”

Dioxins, furans, mercury, formaldehyde and several persistent bio-accumulating carcinogenic compounds associated with paper-making could have contaminated ground or surface water by falling out of the air and settling into the soil, or through waste water releases into Paper Mill Creek, or run-off from the landfill, or leaching from the landfill and lagoons into the aquifer, Carman said.

“I would be surprised if there is not extensive contamination on- and off-site,” he said. Many of these contaminants resist biological decay and dissolving in water, he said. Instead, they bio-accumulate in the food chain, he said.

Paper mill waste

“The paper mill had a big impact on this part of the country here,” said Jesse Cox, who spent the last 24 years of a 41-year paper mill career in the solid waste division. “The paper mill was good to me, as far as providing a living for me and my family.”

When Cox returned from World War II in 1946, he went to work at the paper mill, which sent him to seminars and schools where he learned the latest advances in managing paper-making waste. When he retired in 1986, Cox was manager of the waste treatment plant and sludge press.

“It is unbelievable the differences in the standards we had to follow (for EPA and TCEQ) from when I started to when it shut down,” Cox said. “We made a lot of advances in the treatment plant. I think we were doing a very good job in handling the effluent.”

Solid waste was handled on a 24-hour basis at the mill, Cox said.

Mill effluent was released into a lagoon system that eventually spilled into Paper Mill Creek, according to Cox. The lagoons were replaced by the wastewater treatment plant, which was constructed in the late 1960s/early ’70s, according to David Minshew, who worked 20 years in the Technical Services Department with Cox.

“The mill’s waste management activities and wastewater pond system were subject to ‘waste control orders’ — and, later, water quality permits — issued by the state beginning in 1961, one of the first such permits issued in the state,” Johnston said.

De-watered sludge was taken to the landfill. Both the lagoons and landfills have earthen bottoms, Cox said.

“The landfill is constructed in naturally occurring clay-rich soils found in this area of Texas which form a natural barrier to protect groundwater,” Johnston said.

Both Cox and Carman said it was possible for the contents to leach through the natural barrier down into the groundwater.

“Abitibi has an approved groundwater sampling system, which is designed to detect whether the landfill is leaking contaminants,” Johnston said. “Monitoring results confirm that the landfill is not leaking.”

Since the landfill is designated as “non-hazardous,” the mill wasn’t required to implement hazardous waste technology as would have otherwise been required by the federal Resource Conservation Recovery Act and the Texas Solid Waste Disposal Act, Johnston said.

“The landfill is subject to TCEQ non-hazardous industrial solid waste regulations, which are designed to protect both surface and groundwater,” she said.

Material pumped into the waste water treatment basins during the latter half of the 20th century were circulated by paddles that kept the heated sludge aerated, allowing bacteria to survive, according to Cox. It was then treated with chlorine and other chemicals, he said. Every morning, Cox said, he drew samples from the basins which he took to the mill’s inhouse lab and checked under a microscope to ensure the bacteria were still alive.

The sludge press, which squeezed all the water out of the solid waste, arrived in the mid-1970s, Minshew said.

“Solid waste was hauled off to the landfill where a bulldozer covered it up, layer after layer,” Cox said of the on-site landfill he described as “very big.”

The remains of the landfill and lagoons are visible on Google Earth.

Some of the solid waste was taken to Boiler No. 11, where it was burned, Cox said.

“We couldn’t burn all of it. There was too much,” he said.

The EPA began regulating dioxin discharge from paper mills after Cox retired. It is doubtful, Carman said, that bacteria used to treat carbons in the solid waste were capable of breaking down dioxin and furans. And, he said, it is unlikely there were any pollution controls on the boiler used to burn the solid waste, which probably created more dioxins in the combustion process.

“There were a lot of dirty, toxic sludges burned in those boilers,” Carman said. “They’ve got a mess and the state should go in there immediately and determine if the landfill is leaking into the groundwater. It must be contained.”

Landfill tops recharge zone

“The Yegua-Jackson Aquifer is primarily sand and silt in which water doesn’t move as fast (as it does through limestone caves and fractures in the Edwards Aquifer in Austin and San Antonio),” said Carla Daws, TWDB spokeswoman. “That is not to say that the Yegua-Jackson Aquifer is not susceptible to pollution — it’s just not as susceptible as the Edwards Aquifer.”

TWDB defers pollution concerns to TCEQ, which has already conducted several tests on Zavalla water.

“The (paper mill) is required to self-report to TCEQ samples collected at specific frequencies from their process wastewater and storm water out-falls,” Clawson said. Wastewater samples tested in 2006 and 2007 for a particular type of dioxin were negative, according to Clawson.

There are also 12 ground water monitoring wells surrounding “Landfill 2″ to monitor potential migration, he said.

“The mill’s landfill has an approved groundwater monitoring system to assess and evaluate any possible impact on groundwater quality,” Johnston said. “Storm water runoff from the landfill is collected in a pond system that is sampled and analyzed daily when discharging. The groundwater in the landfill area is sampled and analyzed annually. This evaluation method continues to confirm that the land-filling operations have not adversely impacted groundwater.”

Considering the state only regulates one form of dioxin — and it doesn’t test for it — Carman said it is unlikely that the mill has regularly tested for dioxin, considering the cost of such testing.

The Lufkin Daily News requested ground water sampling results from Clawson on Dec. 20, and submitted a formal Public Information Act request for past ground water monitoring results reported by the mill to TCEQ on Dec. 28, as well as with the EPA prior to Christmas. By law, TCEQ had 10 business days to provide a response to the open records request.

“Nonhazardous waste landfills are not required to submit groundwater monitoring data to the TCEQ nor obtain a permit; they are only required to register, deed record their location and complete an annual summary of waste received,” Clawson said. “Abitibi has not provided groundwater monitoring data; however, TCEQ will request a copy of groundwater monitoring data and annual summaries from Abitibi and can make them available.”