A south Arkansas paper mill must pay $600,000 in fines and spend $1.8 million on environmental projects and even more on facility upgrades to reduce air pollutants in a town full of residents complaining about their air quality, according to a consent decree filed Friday.
The settlement is a start, but certainly not enough, residents of Crossett said Friday.
It’s too late for people who have already suffered ailments from the Georgia-Pacific paper mill, said Sylvia Howard. Howard blames the mill for the breathing problems she and her family members have.
But the settlement likely can help clear up less serious problems, she said.
“I thank God they’re going to clean up some,” she said. “Thank God for that.”
Earlier this year, an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette investigation found that the plant emitted more hydrogen sulfide than the company’s permit allowed. Levels were high enough to create an odor with the potential to cause breathing problems.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality filed Friday’s consent decree in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Arkansas, along with a complaint against Georgia-Pacific.
The action stems from a 2015 agency inspection that found leaks and flaws in the company’s management of hazardous air pollutants, such as formaldehyde.
The consent decree orders several additional measures based on complaints from residents regarding excessive hydrogen sulfide in the air that often causes them breathing troubles. Neither the decree nor the inspection state any specific findings or violations related to hydrogen sulfide.
The paper mill inspection in 2015 found dozens of violations, including leaks, monitoring failures and improper procedures. The EPA alleged the company was in violation of the Clean Air Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act.
The settlement is subject to a 30-day public comment period and final approval by a judge. The comment period, as well as a public meeting in Crossett with state and federal officials, have not been scheduled.
“I think this is excellent,” said Wilma Subra, a scientist hired by the Louisiana Environmental Action Network to study the air and water quality in Crossett, which is just upstream from the Ouachita River in Louisiana. “The hydrogen sulfide has been a really, really big issue with the community for a long time.”
Hydrogen sulfide is mostly emitted from the mill’s wastewater-treatment plant, which was exempted from hydrogen sulfide air-quality regulations, along with other paper mills’ treatment plants, through a 1999 Arkansas law.
An EPA news release stated, “the settlement will further efforts by EPA and [the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality] to address residents’ health and odor complaints stemming from H2S emissions from the Georgia-Pacific facilities.”
But before Friday, the EPA’s enforcement efforts centered on other issues -- too much chlorine and chlorine dioxide on-site, violations of hazardous-waste laws and failure to monitor certain chemicals discharged on-site.
The Department of Environmental Quality had not taken any enforcement actions related to hydrogen sulfide for Georgia-Pacific’s pulp and paper mill in Crossett. It has issued three consent administrative orders against the paper mill since 2016, the first in several years, related to excess carbon monoxide and oxygen emissions.
In 2017, the EPA set up 20 air monitors, some on Georgia-Pacific property and some within the town, for a six-month period. A report on the monitoring, released in February, did not show toxic levels of hydrogen sulfide but showed numerous readings of the “rotten egg” smelling chemical well above the level at which many people start to be able to detect it with their noses, as low as 0.5 parts of hydrogen sulfide per 1 billion parts of air.
It’s at that point that people can start experiencing reactions to the chemical. The odor can cause eye, nose and throat irritation, headaches and breathing troubles, among other things.
Georgia-Pacific officials reject the notion that the odor is causing residents’ health problems.
“We’re not the only manufacturing facility in town,” said Jennifer King, the company’s spokesman in Crossett. “We do have an odor sometimes. But that’s a natural thing with paper mills.”
King also rejected the idea personally.
“I was born and raised in Crossett, and I left for about 20 years, and I chose to come back to Crossett and work for GP,” she said. “I could have a job pretty much anywhere. I would not come back here if I thought my job was going to make me sick.”
Aside from the fines, Georgia-Pacific committed to roughly $4.7 million in environmental projects aimed at reducing hydrogen sulfide emissions and prolonging community monitoring of the toxic gas’s concentration in the air.
The costliest project is a $2.9 million filter to prevent “dregs,” or compounds that don’t dissolve, from entering the plant’s wastewater-treatment system. The filter reduces the amount of sulfide that enters the system. It has already been completed.
Georgia-Pacific also must spend $1.8 million on three “supplemental environmental projects,” including a $1 million pulp mill collection tank aimed at making the wastewater system more stable.
The 600,000-gallon tank, when installed, will be used to collect liquors, fiber and other material in order to better control the flow of some waste products into the system. The mill has up to nine months to install the tank, according to the settlement.
A $500,000 project will inject more oxygen into the wastewater treatment system, reducing hydrogen sulfide emissions and the smell.
Georgia-Pacific also must maintain a public website that summarizes data from a community air monitoring station the company voluntarily installed in 2014. It must continue monitoring for at least three years after the website goes live.
The fines will be split between the EPA and the Department of Environmental Quality.
The Rev. David Bouie, a pastor who has led the Concerned Citizens of Crossett for several years in a fight against the mill’s emissions, said he hopes the EPA monitors more air pollutants from the mill.
The mill also emits formaldehyde and benzene, he noted, both of which are toxic at certain levels.
The consent decree is a start, he said, wondering how long it would take for the regulators or the company to take any further actions.
“It’s a great move, but look how long it took them to make such a move and force them to have to spend $3 [million], $4 [million], $5 million,” he said. His group filed its first federal complaint about the plant in 2011.
The things in the consent decree should have been in the company’s permit already, he said.
King said the company has added much of the work to its outstanding air-permit application with the Department of Environmental Quality.