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Halfway up the Georgia Straight from Vancouver, Powell River has been a dedicated mill town. About 2,000 residents are directly employed by MacMillan-Bloedel: handling lumber and logs, making pulp and paper.
According the the British Columbia Ministry of the Environment, the Powell River mill is operating within its permits. According to a secret federal government study, MacMillan Bloedel's Powell River mill is one of the worst polluting pulp and paper mills in Canada.
The mill complex produces over 16 tones of paper-related products a day. It also churns out an astonishing 50 tons of polluting waste every 24 hours -- all duly licensed by the Province under low standards and lax inspections.
Some of the wastes are well-hidden. For years mountains of wood waste and chemicals were dumped into Powell River harbour via the power station millrace. Now it gushes out unseen from a submarine pipeline, burying bottom life and creating toxic hydrogen sulphide gas. Other wastes fly in the face of Powell river residents daily, eating into car paint, settling on rooftops and in lungs.
A company brochure brags: "Some of the best sports fishing in the area takes place from the deep sea dock within the mill where spring and coho salmon are frequently caught. The commercial herring roe fishery often takes place off the mill during the month of March, when dozens of fishing boats cluster in front of the mill to catch the valuable little fish."
The happy fishermen have not been told that past milling practices and present chlorine bleaching have already made the harbour and some of Malaspina Strait toxic beyond federal standards. There are heavy metals, there are PCBs, there are scores of exotic toxins from pulping - and now we know there are dioxins.
Meanwhile, with government acquiesence, MacMillan Bloedel has many dollars for development, but pennies for pollution control.
MacMillan Bloedel arrived in Powell River in 1960, when it merged with the Powell River Company. With a World War II kraft bleaching operation (which is still running) and an obsolete sulfite mill, Powell River needed massive capital to modernize.
Mac Blo provided the money - $110 million over several years. In return the town promised not to complain to much about the "smell of money" as pulp mill odour has been called. In the same 1965 By-law, the Municipality also promised not to collect more taxes on Mac Blo's expansions. (Jan. 18th, 1965).
Then in 1979 the Provincial Government put the mill entirely beyond the powers of Powell River residents. The MacMillan Bloedel became a designated industrial site such that "the letters patent may provide that no bylaw or other regulation of the council operates to restrict the construction, maintenance or operations of the industrial plant on the land so described....."
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The B.C. Municipal Act, RSBC, 1979, Chap 290, Consolidated Jan 20, 1984, Section 14 (1) and (2) exempts certain industrial plants from any bylaw or regulation of the local councils. |
Meanwhile MacMillan Bloedel has continued to invest in Powell River. According to the Feb. 1988 issue of MacMillan Bloedel's "Penstock":
"1987 was a big year for capital expenditures at Powell River division. Approximately $100 million was budgeted for such major projects as the new Slab and Wing mill, #4 Screen Room changes, Peroxide Plant No. 3, No. 8 Boiler and the rebuild of Numbers 8 & 9 Paper machines. Perhaps the most impressive project -- one that involved a series of remarkable engineering feats -- was the building and startup of the $32 million #5 CTMP line."
You will note there is no description of new pollution control equipment.
In fact MacMillan Bloedel has only begrudgingly announced $68 million for pollution abatement, for all three B.C. mills, two days before a government deadline on dioxin reduction plans. That would average $22 million per mill. The company has chosen the cheapest route possible, chlorine dioxide substitution, while ignoring far more effective controls like oxygen delignification and secondary treatment of wastes.
Meanwhile MacMillan Bloedel is enjoying year after year of record profits. MacMillan Bloedel's profit rose to $280 million in 1987 from 178.3 million in 1986. Most of those profits are coming from pulp and paper mills like Powell River. About 80% of the 1986 profits came from pulp and paper. In 1988 higher prices for pulp, newsprint and containerboard products helped MacMillan Bloedel reach a record profit of $329.8 million. Sales were a record $3.3 billion
"Surface-discharged effluent from the Powell river mill exerted an influence on intertidal ecology up to 8 km northward with the prevailing currents. Effects to the south were minimal, although intertidal growth restrictions were noted at a station on Harwood Island (Young, 1978). With the installation of a submarine diffuser in 1980, intertidal impacts have been alleviated (Sullivan, 1982). However a new fibre bed and consequent benthic habitat alienation have been recently observed near the diffuser (Pomeroy, Env. Canada, EP, unpublished)."
On the ocean floor wood wastes are once again building up a bottom-smothering layer. Toxic hydrogen sulphide gas will rise from the decomposing tons of wood fibre, toxic resins and chlorinated poisons. Dives near the mill and at the dumpsite reveal reduced bottom life and bacterial slime covering most of the bed of wood fibre.
"The fact that Powell River is famous for scuba diving
and sport fishing is evidence for our excellent record in
protecting the environment."
-- quote from a MacMillan Bloedel Powell
River Division tour book.
"Most of the material dumped at the Malaspina site originates from annual maintenance dredging at the MacMillan Bloedel Pulpmill at Powell River..... In addition to containing a large amount of wood debris and fibre, the sediments in the vicinity of the pulpmill often contain elevated levels of cadmium (1 to 2 æg/g) and occasionally high levels of mercury. It is thought that the cadmium, commonly found in association with zinc, may have resulted from the use of zinc dithionite as a pulp bleaching agent prior to 1971. Elevated levels or mercury in sediments appear to be patchy and may have resulted from the historical practice using mercurial compounds to control slimes on logs and in paper making processes. This practice was discontinued around 1960."
These cadmium levels are 2 to 4 times the levels allowed by the federal Ocean Dumping Control Act, but the Regional Advisory Committee has approved MacMillan Bloedel's continued dumping, with the rationale that the site is already polluted anyway. Thus more heavy metals are moved out into the currents of the Strait annually.
"Cadmium levels in the Powell river sediments are also substantially higher than those observed at other mills. the highest value of 10.5 mg.kg-1 (dry weight) was recorded in November 1980. the lowest value 2.92 mg.g-1 (dry weight) recorded during this survey was still substantialy higher than most other coastal mills. High levels continued to be observed in 1981 (Sullivan 1982) ... the cadmium levels indicate a continuing concern associated with dredging and dredge spoils disposal from this site.
Cadmium is generally found with zinc, and it is assumed that the build up of cadmium in the Powell river area was caused by MacMillan Bloedel's use of zinc dithionite as a brightening agent for groundwood. Use of this zinc-based chemical was discontinued in the mid-1970's, after scientists found that Pacific oysters from Myrtley Point to Savary Island, several kilometres north of Powell River, had accumulated toxic levels of zinc (up to 17,280 æg.g) and cadmium (10 æg.g) (Waldichuk, 1974,pg 24). The heavy metals do not break down and remain in the environment indefinitely.
Cadmium building up in seafood caused "Itai itai" disease in Japan, brigning brittle bones, pain, muscular weakness and loss of appetite. Hypertension has also been attributed to high cadmium concentrations in the diet (Hise and Fulkerson, 1973).
"The highest values for mercury in sediments were recorded by Nelson (1979d) in 1978 at the Powell river mill. a level of 21.0 mg.kg-1 dry weight was observed in a core sample collected immediately offshore from the breakwater. The high level persisted in 1979 with a maximum value of 9.49 mg.kg-1 dry weight being recorded by Sullivan (1980)."
The mercury likely came from the use of mercury-based slimicides back in the 1950's. Like cadmium, mercury never leaves the environment. Mercury contaminated seafood caused "Minimata Disease" in Japan, where over 100 people died and 700 others suffered severe, permanent neurological damage after consuming shellfish contaminated by industrial dishcarges of methyl mercury into Minamata Bay. Ontario natives in the Grassy Narrows Reserve were similarly poisoned by pulp mill mercury effluent.
The Powell River mill does not now discharge mercury and the local levels are low enough that there is no immediate danger. However scientists still do not know the long-term affects of accumulating mercury in the body by eating sea food containing this toxic metal.
"For example, leakage from equipment containing PCBs is thought to be the source of the moderately elevated PCB levels in the sediments adjacent to several pulp and paper mills in the province.
---------------------------------------------------------------------- PULP MILL LOCATION PCB CONCENTRATION (mg/kg dry weight) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Powell River 0.01 to 1.7 False Creek 0.01 to 3.9 |
By comparison, the PCBs in Baltimore Harbour, a heavily industrialized area, were generally between 1.0 and 2.0 mg/kg. Anything over 1.0 mg/kg of PCBs is considered high.
Greenpeace chemist Renate Kroese calculates the Powell River mill churns out over a tonne of total organochlorines per day. There are over 1,000 different chemical combinations of organochlorines, and science only knows what 300 of them are. Among them are a family of deadly chemicals called dioxins, and another toxic group called furans. Both of these materials are showing up in shellfish and salmon, threatening B.C.'s second major industry -- and the health of consumers.
Tests in Sweden have shown that dioxins from pulp and paper mills can spread at least 25 kilometres, and may eventually build up everywhere in a large body of water like the North Sea -- or the Strait of Georgia. We are just beginning to discover the true cost of using chlorine to make paper sparkling white.
Even if MacMillan Bloedel installs chlorine dioxide substitution "within a two-year period" to limit the flow of dioxins, a host of other chlorine compounds will continue to pour out of the mill, including chlorophenols -- toxics that science has proven can last 25 years in the environment.
The use of chlorine dioxide also results in considerable amounts of chlorate discharge. Chlorate is a powerful herbicide and was proven deadly to bladderwrack (a brown algae) in the Baltic. Chlorate can be treated in anaerobic treatment systems, but MacMillan Bloedel has given no indication it intends to treat mill waste before dumping it in the ocean.
The Ontario Ministry of the Environment has compiled a special list of more than two dozen chlorine compounds coming out of kraft pulp mills, -- chemicals that cause birth defects, cancer, reduced ability to reproduce and lowered immunity to disease. The B.C. government test for none of these. In fact the B.C. Waste Management Branch seldom tests Powell River effluent at all. They leave it all up to the company. To no one's surprise, company tests show no problems.
Neither does the government monitor Powell River air to any real degree. According to a June 1988 Summary by the Ministry of Environment and Parks, the mill is out of compliance with its air discharge permit PA-3149: "Generally in compliance, however malfunctions have caused recent public complaints. Emissions and ambient monitoring is continuing."
However, the former head of air quality management for the Province, Doug Sandberg, said in December 1988, that outside of the Greater Vancouver District "for all of the pulp mills, lumber and plywood mills, mines, smelters and other industries under air-emission permits, one single ministry sample was taken in 1988 -- an alfalfa-dryer emission in Creston." As Glenn Bohn noted in the Vancouver Sun of Dec. 17, 1988: "Ministry officials and Strachan {Environment Minister Bruce Strachan} have not challenged that statistic."
Therefore, if "Emissions and ambient monitoring is continuing" as stated in the summary, it is being done by the MacMillan Bloedel at times convenient for the company, with no Provincial sampling.
Meanwhile two years ago the Powell River Anti-Pollution Society tested fly ash landing on a house roof and found it contained chlorophenates. It only takes 30 parts per BILLION of chlorophenates to kill salmon.
Other documented materials in kraft mill fly ash include dioxins (mainly from the hog fuel boiler), PAHs, sulfur dioxide, and enough particles to both clog the lungs and imcrease the rainfall.
Particulate emissions have a curious side effect on nature. they provide a nucleau around which water particles may condense, thus increasing rainfall. A study in the state of Washington has shown that "annual precipitation has increased since 1946 more than 30% in some cases in regions adjacent to or downwind of some of the larger pulp and paper mills in the state." (Source: Economic Council on Economic Priorities. "Paper Profits: Pollution in the Pulp and Paper Industry, no date but early 70's.)
Cancer statistics for British Columbia show higher mortality from lung cancer in areas surrounding pulp and paper towns. And every resident knows the eye and nose irritation, the child's cough that comes with wind blowing stack emission over the town. But neither the federal government nor the Province has seen fit to add up the health statistics in Powell River.
Finally the American government has agreed to fund an overall health study for a B.C. milltown: Port Alberni. The answers from Dr. S. Vidal's study there should be illuminating for Powell river as well.
It can be very difficult to find out how much pollution is coming out of B.C. pulp and paper mills. The provincial government routinely denies citizens information about pollution and hazards in the environment. Although the federal government routinely hides tax-paid information in unpublished reports, there is at least a freedom of information act at the federal level. No such rights are given to British Columbia residents by "their" government.
The chart below, taken from a federal study leaked to Greenpeace, shows how the Powell River pulp and paper mill compares to similar mills across Canada. It shows the amount of wood and other wastes suspended in the discharge (as Total Suspended Solids or TSS); the amount of oxygen it will take away from fish and other species for nature to process this waste (Biological Oxygen Demand or BOD); and the amount of toxic material produced (Toxicity).
COMPARISON OF POWELL RIVER EFFLUENT TO THE CANADIAN MEDIAN:
(Source: Sinclair, 1988*) | |Toxicity |
|TSS(kg/d) |BOD(kg/d) |(m3x103) |
British Columbia | | | |
MacMillan Bloedel| 19,859 | 30,462 | 259 |
(Powell River) | | | |
_________________|__________|_____________|__________|______
MEDIAN LOADINGS OF ALL DIRECT DISCHARGE MILLS IN CANADA
(source Table 5:6, pg 355) | | |
(Sinclair, 1988) | | |Toxicity |
(for 1985) |TSS(kg/d) |BOD(kg/d) |(m3x103) |
| 5,000 | 9,000 | 45 |
* for publication details (e.g Sinclair,1988) see "References" at the end of this paper. |
According to these Environment Canada figures, MacMillan Bloedel's Powell River operation was one of the 11 worst polluting mills in Canada in 1985, and the biggest single industrial source of pollution in British Columbia.
In 1986 the Powell River mill produced an average of 1,657 tons of pulp per day. Each day, an average of 308,566 cubic metres of water and wastes flowed through the plant and out as effluent into the Malaspina Strait, part of the Strait of Georgia.
This is what that effluent looked like, according to the Federal Government, and in the eyes of B.C. regulators:
1986 MACMILLAN BLOEDEL POWELL RIVER EFFLUENT (Env. Canada) (TSS=Total Suspended Solids; BOD=Biological Oxygen Demand; Kg/Adt=Kilograms: the Average Daily (in metric tonnes); %comp=percent of the time in compliance with regulations) ==================+=============+==================+============= TSS (Fed regs) |TSS (Prov reg|) BOD 5 (Fed) | BOD(Prov) Limit Averg %Comp.|Limit average|limit averge|%comp|limit average Kg/ADt Kg/ADt |tonne/day | Kg/AD/t | | tonne/day -----|-----|------|------|------|------|-----|-----|------|------ 12.3 | 12.6| 58% | 30.5 |20.9 | 23 |18.9 | 82% | 44.5|31.5 =====+=====+======+======+======+======+=====+=====+======+====== |
Analysis:
Yet Sinclair says that "In fact, it has been observed that approximately one-third to one-half of the BOD AND TSS pollution loadings from a kraft mill is due to unexpected or unanticipated spills. (Sinclair 1988, p. 105 citing Springer, pg 165-66).
Therefore the reported pollution figures are probably low by at least one-third of the actual discharge.
In 1986 the Powell River mill passed 3 out of 4 tests where fish were put in a tank with 34% mill effluent and 66% water. That means at least half of the fish lived for 96 hours in such a mixture. In one of the 1986 tests, more than 50% of the fish usually rainbow trout, died.
Officially the mill is in compliance for toxicity 75% of the time.
However these figures hide the very low standards B.C. sets for coastal pulp and paper mills. The same mill on the Atlantic coast would expect 50% of the fish to survive in a mixture of 65% effluent and 35% water -- double the strength. And 9 mills in B.C.'s interior are expected to clean up their discharges to the point where 50% of the fish survive for 96 hours in 100% pure effluent, with no water dilution. Not all mills succeed in this test, but many come close because interior mills must have secondary treatment, including holding lagoons, which remove many toxic materials rather than discharging them into the environment.
The Federal Environment Ministry is accepting the lower British Columbia Standards instead of the federal regulations, partly because this mill existed before the 1972 regulations were passed. Like the majority of Canadian mills, Powell River slips through a loop-hole in the law which has never been properly enforced.
If federal regulations for toxicity were applied to MacMillan Bloedel's Powell River Mill, it would fail 100% of the time. If either B.C. or the Federal Environment Ministry had enforced the law, MacMillan Bloedel would likely have paid large fines and might have cleaned up years ago.
W. Sinclair, in his secret 1988 report to Environment Canada, (leaked to Greenpeace), said of the B.C.Coastal mills, including MacMillan Bloedel's Powell River Mill: "There appears to be a substantial amount of unjustified resistance to adopting the necessary environmental controls among these mills." (Sinclair,1988. pg 284)
MacMillan Bloedel has shown it can take a leadership role in producing forest products, and continues to install the best of production equipment in the Powell River Mill. As a major British Columbia producer, "Mac Blo" should be installing the best available technology to protect the people and the environment that make the company profitable.
If you would like to help make a healthy Powell River, here are some things to do:
Kay, B.H. 1986. West Coast Marine Environmental Quality: Technical Reviews Regional Program Report 86-01, Pacific & Yukon Region, Environment Canada.
Lyons, R.M., 1988a. Mill Pollution Regulations A Shambles, Study Finds, Greenpeace Vancouver.
Rankin, T.M, Brown, R.M., Persuasion, Penalties and Prosecution: The Treatment of Repeat Offenders under British Columbia's Occupational Health and Safety and Pollution Control Legislation, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria, 1988.
Sinclair, W.F., 1988. Controlling Pollution from Canadian Pulp and Paper Manufacturers: a Federal Perspective. Environment Canada, Ottawa, 615 pgs. Study commisioned John Betts, under authority of Peter Higgins, Director General of Environmental Protection in Ottawa. Never released to the public. Leaked to Greenpeace, Vancouver.
Sullivan, D.L. Compilations and Assessment of Research, Monitoring and Dumping Information for Active Dump Sites On the British Columbia and Yukon Coasts from 1979 to 1987, Manuscript report: 87:02, Environmental Protection, Pacific and Yukon Region, March 1987.
Waldichuk, M. 1974. Some Biological Concerns in Heavy Metals Pollution, reprinted from Pollution and Physiology of Marine Organisms, Academic Press, San Francisco. (also available from Pacific Environment Institute, West Vancouver, B.C.)
Ward, A.B. (Ms) and D.L. Sullivan, A Review of Existing and Historical Ocean Dumpsites in the Pacific Region, Regional Program Report: 80-5, Environmental Protection Service, Env. Canada, Pacific Region, April 1980.
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