ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, March 18, 1997 TAG: 9703180041
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL THE ROANOKE TIMES
What makes the order unique is that the company has not been charged with violating water quality rules.
Westvaco Corp., which operates a pulp and paper plant at Covington, said Monday it will spend $150 million to improve water quality in the Jackson River.
The investment is "unprecedented" in the state, according to Thomas Hopkins, director of the Department of Environmental Quality.
The company and the DEQ have signed a consent order that will require Westvaco to make substantial technological and other production modifications over the next four years. The DEQ periodically issues such orders to companies that are not in compliance with pollution regulations.
But what makes the Westvaco order unique - besides the sheer size of the investment - is that the company has not been charged with violating any water quality rules, said Jim Smith, senior enforcement specialist in the DEQ's Roanoke office.
"Consent orders can be very friendly or very hostile," he said. "This one is very friendly. There is no violation at the heart of this order."
Rather, at the crux of the agreement is the need to maintain a critical level of oxygen in the Jackson River, into which Westvaco discharges its wastewater. Dissolved oxygen is vital to supporting plant and animal life in the river.
The amount of dissolved oxygen can drop if wastewater containing organic matter - which is a byproduct of paper manufacturing and eats up oxygen - is discharged into the river. Under the consent order, Westvaco will release less organic waste into the river.
DEQ also is working with other area companies that discharge into the river on projects that should improve the river's water quality. The improvements could remove the Jackson from Virginia's list of impaired waterways by 2003, if not sooner, Hopkins said.
In a report issued last fall, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group said Westvaco's Covington mill was the state's largest source of toxins that may be linked to cancer or reproductive disorders. The company discharged 22,300 pounds into the Jackson River, the group said.
And the mill last summer jumped to the top of the DEQ's list of the top 10 polluters in the state, with a total of 4.67 million pounds of toxins released into the environment in 1994.
Westvaco approached DEQ about the current water pollution prevention measures in 1996, said company spokesman Robert Crockett. Under the terms of the company's 1994 water permit renewal, Westvaco was by June this year to have completed construction of a wastewater cooling tower.
But after the permit paperwork had been filed, Crockett said, the company began to look more seriously at eliminating elemental chlorine, which can create noxious compounds, from its bleaching process. Alterations to this system would cost Westvaco $140 million, he said.
Because the company also faced building a $30 million cooling tower, Westvaco approached DEQ about other ways of controlling pollution. The result, after months of negotiations, was the consent order.
"One size does not fit all," Hopkins said. "Similar problems in different parts of the state may have entirely different solutions, based on environmental as well as community circumstances."
If the pollution control projects don't have the desired effect, the company may discontinue the projects and instead build the tower.
The effects of the project will be measured at nine points along the river. Monitoring will be done jointly by DEQ and Westvaco.
The Covington mill has been under periodic construction since 1986, when Westvaco began a four-step expansion. Since then, the company has spent more than $1 billion in capital improvements, including four new paperboard machines. The most recent project, the third step in the expansion, ended in 1992.
The plant still cannot produce all the fiber it needs to supply the new machines, Crockett said. When it is complete, the mill expansion will allow the plant to be self-sufficient in pulp production. The pollution prevention project will support a fourth phase of the expansion, he said.
For now, the company is receiving no incentives to offset the cost of the $150 million project. But Crockett said Westvaco expects to continue talks with the state.
"Throughout the Covington mills modernization and expansion programs, we have tried continually to reduce our environmental impact while continuing to expand our production capabilities and enhancing our product for customers around the world," Crockett said. "These pollution efforts do that."
Sylvia Brugh, who attended DEQ's news conference as a member of the Upper James Scenic River Advisory Board, said her group is in favor of any efforts to clean the area's waterways.
"Clean water - that's the resource we can afford least to pollute," she said. "I was just so glad to hear what they're going to do."
The consent order will be presented for approval to the State Water Control Board on April 29. DEQ will accept written comment on the consent order through April 16. Comments should be addressed to James Smith, DEQ West Central Regional Office, 3019 Peters Creek Road N.W., Roanoke, VA 24109.
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