JAY – International Paper recently put a contingency plan in place in case the company couldn’t stabilize the level of wastewater at its treatment plant. But the sequential shutdown of machines at that mill and Wausau-Mosinee paper mill didn’t have to be activated.
“We were not going to sacrifice environment for production,” Tom Saviello, International Paper environmental, health and safety manager, said Tuesday.
The mill, however, made some changes that allowed the situation to stabilize without any violations.
The company is keeping a close watch on the wastewater treatment plant, the IP official said, to make sure the situation remains stable.
“Everything is headed in the right direction,” Saviello said.
International Paper officials contacted the town and the state as soon as they noticed a problem, Saviello said.
International Paper treats Wausau-Mosinee paper mill’s wastewater along with its own.
The company didn’t violate its town permits or its state permits during the upset at the wastewater treatment plant earlier this month, Jay environmental code enforcement officer Shiloh Ring said last Thursday.
She had been at the mill most of last week.
Only treated wastewater went into the Androscoggin River, and it stayed within the limits of existing permits, Ring said.
In December, IP had taken corrective actions at its treatment plant after exceeding, under the town’s permit, its daily limit of biochemical oxygen demand.
However, the mill was in compliance with its state permit.
Part of the corrective action was to have International Paper dredge the lagoon at the treatment plant, Ring said, to add capacity to address problems that had occurred in December.
After the dredging, everything had seemed to be working fine until just recently, she said.
The problem they were having this summer was with total suspended solids, such as sludge and dead micro-organisms, Ring said.
Saviello said the company knew in June that something was wrong at its wastewater treatment plant but didn’t know exactly what it was. For example, he said, oxygen concentration changed at the treatment pond, and the micro-organisms, the bugs that eat organic matter, started to change.
Saviello said he didn’t know if the problem occurred because of the reaction to dredging and channeling in the pond or changes in its characteristics, or because it is summer.
The mill caught everything before violations could happen, rather than wait until they occurred, Saviello said.
Several changes were implemented, including adding oxygen to the pond to stimulate bug activity, he said.
In addition, the contingency plan to do a sequential shutdown of machines was put in place, Saviello said.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
