Could What We Don’t Know Hurt Us?
Could What We Don’t Know Hurt Us?
BELLINGHAM BAY DOESN’T MIX
In 1957, E. N. Steele documented the effects of pulp mill pollution on native oyster stocks in “The Rise and Decline of the Olympia Oyster”.
In 1957, E. N. Steele documented the effects of pulp mill pollution on native oyster stocks in “The Rise and Decline of the Olympia Oyster”.
BELLINGHAM BAY DOESN’T MIX
In 1957, E. N. Steele documented the effects of pulp mill pollution on native oyster stocks in “The Rise and Decline of the Olympia Oyster”. In his subsequent “The Immigrant Oyster” (1964), he specifically details the correlation between decreased oyster production in Samish Bay and increased pulp production at the Bellingham mill.
In 1960 and 1961, The University of Washington conducted “An Oceanographic Survey of the Bellingham-Samish Bay System” and produced “Special Report No. 32”. This survey documented Bellingham Bay’s “concentrating eddy”, establishing that Upper Bellingham Bay's potential for mixing was insufficient to disperse pollution from industrial discharges. Additionally, it was found that prevailing southerly winds tended to help sequester pollutants in the bay.
Bellingham’s first primary wastewater treatment plant was located in 1947 at the mouth of Whatcom Creek. It discharged into the “inner harbor” area of Bellingham Bay. By the late sixties, it had become self-evident that the outflow needed to be relocated to an area with better mixing. A new location was acquired at Post Point. A study of City-wide sewerage for the City of Bellingham included an option for G-P to participate in the municipal treatment service that was intended to be discharged at Post Point, south of the mixing threshold line.
G-P declined and in 1978 built the ASB Lagoon to provide its own wastewater treatment. The outfall extends through the non-mixing portion of Bellingham Bay, necessitating a state-approved “mixing zone” to meet discharge requirements with dilution values of 89:1 for the acute zone, and 265:1 for the chronic zone.
EVERYBODY KNEW
In 1953, hundreds of people in Minimata, Japan, began falling ill, exhibiting severe brain damage, blindness, and birth defects from eating fish heavily contaminated with mercury. Ten years later, while the G-P chlor-alkali facility was being permitted, Swedish researchers held a conference in Stockholm to present scientific findings that mercury levels in the environment were rising ominously and to issue warnings of the immanent threat to human health, the environment as well as food and water supplies.
By 1970, Norvald Fimreite, a graduate student at Western Ontario University, exposed the fact that fish in many lakes were contaminated with mercury. Ohio closed its portion of Lake Erie to commercial fishing. This revelation commenced events leading to the 1972 International Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement and the formation of the Great Lakes International Joint Commission. During this time, mercury-cell chlor-alkali facilities were eliminated from the Great Lakes basin to protect fish stocks.
By the early seventies, the World Health Organization had warned that mercury emissions were a global threat to food and water supplies.
In 1981, the first North Sea Convention identified chlor-alkali facilities as one of the largest threats to fisheries stocks.
Nevertheless, in 1964, G-P was allowed to locate mercury cells directly adjacent to Bellingham’s population and upwind of the municipal Water supply. Today, Whatcom County exhibits a higher than ordinary incidence of health effects commonly associated with mercury exposure, e.g. ADHD, Autism, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s and certain cancers.
Today, broken thermometers containing less than a tenth of a gram of mercury warrant a HazMat response protocol, yet hundreds of tons of unaccounted mercury in Bellingham are of no official concern.
NOBODY CARED
Despite world environmental professionals agreeing in the 1960s that mercury-cell chlor-alkali production was a health threat, officials in Bellingham, Whatcom County and the State of Washington fought off citizen challenges to issue permits for G-P.
Despite G-P repeatedly dumping mercury tainted sludge illegally, no regulatory enforcement ever required them to clean up a site.
Despite strong indications of health effects related to mercury exposure, the state has abstained from conducting a comprehensive health survey of the affected area, including the Lummi Nation - where more than thirty percent of some residents’ diets may originate in Bellingham Bay.
Despite the fact that atmospheric releases of mercury vapor are common to mercury-cell chlorine production, then Northwest Air Pollution Authority conducted a three year air quality study in downtown Bellingham without testing for the element. The final year of the study coincided with the decommissioning of the chlor-alkali plant.
Fugitive dust emissions from demolishing such facilities are known to pose mercury exposure risks, yet no monitoring was in place for the occasion. Similarly, landfilling demolition debris from such facilities has been shown to elevate mercury levels in fish population residing in ponds adjacent to the fill. Continued demolition at the site still presents a potential mercury exposure hazard.
G-P’s EGREGIOUS POLLUTION
G-P dumped mercury into the Whatcom Waterway. They illegally dumped mercury laden sludge around Star Rock, along the banks of Whatcom Creek at Haskell Business Park. They illegally dumped it in the vicinity of Bakerview and Hannegan. They illegally buried 15 tons of mercury at their mill site in the Chem-Fix sludge solidification project. G-P used private contractors to haul 100 tons of waste per day to unregulated dumpsites all over Whatcom County and into Skagit County.
When, in 1977, the State finally refused to approve several of the unregulated dump sites, G-P replied that they “must respectfully reject (the state’s) refusal to approve those sites”. Their argument hinged around the point that their permit only prohibited “direct” discharges to navigable waters” and that leachate from dump sites remote from such waters was therefore not in violation.
G-P received wood chips by barge in 500 ton lots. For each barge load of chips, they were required to receive two barges of hog fuel. The hog fuel boiler system was a principal source of energy in their process. It is suspected that mercury sludge could have been incorporated into boiler fuel as disposal regulations tightened. This is denied by G-P, but impossible to verify, as mercury would readily volatilize into the atmosphere, leaving little or no trace in the ash.
THE FIRST MERCURY RECOVERY UNIT
In the early seventies, as regulation of mercury sludge increased, G-P sought and received funding through the EPA for a Mercury Recovery Unit (MRU). This was a essentially a retort, a sludge roaster supposedly designed to recapture the mercury by condensing the vapor. After years of operation in downtown Bellingham, treating untold tons of sludge, the State DOE finally asked G-P to report on their progress with the federal grant project. G-P replied that while the MRU was very effective at removing mercury, they had as yet unfortunately not actually recovered any. DOE wished them luck in their continued attempts.
THE MISSING MERCURY
In 2003, it was discovered that industrial users of mercury were buying much more mercury than was accounted for in their reporting of self-monitored emissions and disposals. This has been a source of embarrassment to regulators and has spawned legislation attempting to phase out mercury-cells and tighten reporting requirements. The Chlorine Institute, a trade association representing chlor-alkali facilities said at least 30 tons were unaccounted for in 2003 – from six facilities. Even without the “missing mercury”, 2005 mercury releases from these mercury-cell chlor-alkali plants totaled one seventh the releases from 450 coal-fired power generators – meaning the average mercury-cell chlor-alkali facility emits nearly ten times as much mercury as an average coal-fired power generator.
A study by Environment Canada of a mercury-cell facility in Dalhousie, New Brunswick discovered that mercury air emissions averaged 15 to 20 times releases reported to receiving water bodies.
G-P admits releasing as much as 20 tons into Bellingham Bay. Given their record of violations and recalcitrant non-compliance, the figure is probably conservative. Following the Dalhousie conclusions, we might reasonably be concerned for the fate of another 400 missing tons of atmospheric releases. Plant Manager David Franklin admitted to the City Council that G-P needed to replace an average of 15 tons per year into their chlorine process. Having operated for about forty years, the public might therefore wonder about the fate of around 600 tons of missing mercury. Industry standards for this process of pulp production suggest that up to 200 grams of mercury could be consumed per ton of pulp produced. Bellingham produced 220,000 tons of pulp annually before permanent closure in 2001, suggesting the missing tonnage might approach 1,700 tons.
G-P also produced excess chlorine and caustic soda for the bulk chemical market. The chlor-alkali facility commenced operation at 122 tons per day. Capacity was increased in 1977 by 50 tons per day. By 1990, the plant produced 220 tons per day. Industry standards suggest 130 grams of mercury may be consumed per ton of chlorine produced. A roughly averaged production over forty years might therefore indicate 400 tons of unaccounted mercury were expended.
In any case, forming remedial plans that address only 35 tons without an accounting of G-P’s missing mercury leaves the public uninformed about a potentially serious health threat in the community.
LAKE WHATCOM
When elevated mercury levels were detected in tissue from fish in Lake Whatcom, the USGS performed a study entitled “Sources of Mercury in Sediments, Water and Fish of the Lakes of Whatcom County, Washington” (2004). The species of mercury detected in sediments and the distance of deposition from the facility indicated combustion, not vapor emission as a principle source. Curiously, in contradiction to G-P’s written response to DOE regarding their early Mercury Recovery Unit, the USGS was told that most of the mercury was recovered. USGS consequently attributed the problem to municipal solid waste incinerators and the City’s sewage treatment incinerator.
THE CHEMICAL INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION
Bill Moyers amply documented meetings in the 1970s by the Chemical Industry Association in which they explored ways to avoid waste regulation by creating products for sale to members, or the public. G-P is listed in the minutes as an attendee.
Others have shown that “inactive ingredients” in bulk commodities like detergents or fertilizers were often materials of no use to the product that should have been disposed according to hazardous waste regulation.
For instance, G-P produced a “drilling mud” for the oil industry from their lignin, “black liquor” waste. This mud was injected down drill holes to maintain a hydrostatic head and to lubricate the drill. Commonly witnessed reproductive failures in fish populations around offshore oil drilling platforms led to the discovery of mercury hotspots not attributable to local geology.
G-P also sold their own forestry division a black liquor product for dust suppression on roads. This material was routinely used throughout the Lake Whatcom and Nooksack River watersheds on company logging roads. Our volcanic geology is often cited as the cause for elevated background levels of mercury in the Nooksack River entering Bellingham Bay. However, no cinnabar deposits have ever been identified in the region. It is possible that mercury from G-P’s dumpsites and dust suppression activities contribute to these elevated levels.
MERCURY PERSISTS AND CYCLES IN THE ENVIRONMENT
Numerous studies have shown elevated mercury concentrations in air, soil and vegetation near mercury-cell chlor-alkali facilities. This loading generally begins approaching normal levels within 5 kilometers of the facility. However, deposition is presumed to occur much farther away, dependent upon meteorological conditions. Rain effectively scrubs mercury vapor from the air column. Mercury vapor flux is a matter of more recent research.
In Burlington, Georgia, the LCP facility was found to exhibit significant mercury vapor flux more than a mile away. Subsequent to the study, contaminated materials containing more than 200 tons of mercury were removed from the site.
In Germany, a study of an abandoned chlor-alkali facility showed mercury vapor levels at 100 times normal one kilometer upwind of the plant. Contaminated soils were again identified as the source.
In California, scores of municipal water supplies are monitoring an increase in mercury suspected of arriving at reservoirs after more than a century of cycling down-gradient from earlier gold mining operations in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. G-P’s Whatcom County dumpsites could remain a long-term source of mercury in the environment.
The recent theory of “Natural Recovery” exploits elevated background mercury levels to mask releases from contaminated sediments in Bellingham Bay and to suggest that no action is required. However, it is well documented that elemental mercury entrained in anaerobic bacteria becomes alkylated and bio-accumulative. Bio-accumulative forms of mercury present a long-term health risk because levels gradually work their way up the food chain.
Bacteria are not long lived. When they die, the mercury is released again into the environment, often bubbling out of the sediments to proceed downwind as methylated vapor until sticking to objects, washing off, re-entering water or soils, becoming entrained again and eventually accumulating up the chain in a never-ending cycle.
A full accounting of all mercury consumed in G-P’s process is in the public’s best health interest and should be important to any comprehensive plan of remediation.
MERCURY ACTIVELY DISASSEMBLES NEURONS
The University of Calgary has documented with disturbing video-micrographs the mechanism by which mercury strips micro-tubules from the micro-fibrils of active neurite processes, leaving tangled, unsupported fibrils such as is typically seen in a number of chronic, wasting health syndromes. This video is available on-line.
REMEDIAL ALTERNATIVES
For about ten years, representatives of 14 agencies met periodically for lunch to formulate ten remedial alternatives for the Bellingham Bay Action Plan. Alternative A was a stock no-action alternative. The action alternatives contemplated the removal of between 160,000 and 1,900,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment, not including the ASB lagoon.
Within a month of the Port’s purchase and sales agreement with the Port, Alternative K was framed and for all practical purposes adopted as the preferred alternative. It relies upon the theory of Natural Recovery to justify capping of contaminant in situ, focusing removals on the ASB in preparation for its conversion to a marina.
So far there has been no public dialog on the potential of the ASB to support waterfront businesses with family wage jobs or to serve the community’s future wastewater or stormwater treatment requirements, thus protecting bay restoration investments from recontamination.
IT GETS EXPENSIVE
At Onandaga Lake in New York, Honeywell and subsidiary Allied Signal were assessed $50 million to clean up 165,000 pounds of mercury. It was estimated that assessing the company for natural resource damages could add an additional $2.3 billion. The company proposed a plan of limited dredging and extensive capping that could cost $210 million.
Cleaning up 15 tons of mercury at a Swedish chlor-alkali facility was projected to cost more than $15 million in 2003.
Duracell spent $13 million to remove 30,000 tons of contaminated soil from a North Carolina Facility. Another $6 million was spent on test wells. The company will incur additional expense remediating mercury found in soils beyond the facility’s grounds.
In 2002, a federal Judge in Maine found that mercury extending to off-site areas near a closed chemical plant could pose a threat to public health and the environment. The former owner had agreed to clean-up 80 tons of mercury left at the site and to remediate almost four miles of the Penobscot River. The judge found that they could be held liable for extended clean-ups regulators deemed necessary.
According to the Sediment Management Work Group, actual project costs for contaminated sediment removal range between $220 and $1,670 per cubic yard. Given remedial alternatives ranging between 160,000 and 1,900,000 cubic yards of sediment removal, really cleaning up all the contaminated sediments could cost between $418 million and $1.5 billion.
THE PORT’S AGREEMENT
In 2001, when G-P announced permanent closure, the Port of Bellingham was quick to seize the opportunity to acquire the property. Rather than hold G-P accountable for their environmental liabilities, the Port assumed them in exchange for a $10 price for the property. The Port entered a complex purchase and sales agreement that included the involvement of one of the world’s largest insurers, AIG. In a wholesale reversal of normal legal precedent, the parties agreed to a procedure which made them all partners in agreeing to avoid costs, share expenses and defer G-P’s liability under the law to a last resort.
Some provisions of the agreement are simple, if shocking. The Port agreed to accept the lowest cost remedial alternative and foot the bill for any additional measures. The Port agreed to defend G-P from any claims. The Port also agreed not to prospect for any additional environmental liabilities.
PENALTIES CAN BE SERIOUS
Three officers and managers of LCP Chemicals of Brunswick, Ga., were convicted of violating various environmental protection laws, conspiracy to violate the Clean Water Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, knowingly endangering employees and a variety of other environmental offenses.
The Chairman of the Board was sentenced to serve nine years in prison and pay a $20,000 fine. The Plant Manager was sentenced to six and one-half years in prison.
CONSUMER BRANDING
As G-P commenced closure, they also announced a major shift in corporate strategy. They would phase out primary chemical production and focus on branding of their consumer products. Their first advertising effort featured account executives sprouting out of a forest floor and emphasized their corporate environmental responsibility.
The necessity for products to maintain a high level of environmental integrity in today’s consumer market meant the Port had an opportunity to negotiate a much more comprehensive arrangement. The Port instead entered into an agreement that hamstrings their ability to protect the community that supports them. However, G-P’s market vulnerability still exists for other future negotiations.
MERCURY VAPOR MONITORING
Quantified evidence is the key to pinpointing liability. Because mercury persists and cycles through the environment, it can be measured. Mercury is known to flux during periods of insolation, even during cold temperatures. Clear skies and warm temperatures cause the highest levels of flux. Rain effectively scrubs vapor from the air column. Therefore, summer is the best time to implement a monitoring regime in this climate.
Tekran mercury vapor monitors have been successfully employed to record mercury vapor flux on and around facilities and disposal sites. Monitors can be placed around sites and correlated with wind direction and temperatures, allowing detection of hidden sites and hotspots on known sites. Mobile monitors can quickly measure plume dispersion and supply Gaussian models with traverse data that can predict the source and extent of the problem.
There is no dispute that mercury is a singularly potent threat to human health and the environment. The age-old strategy of hiding it wherever it will go away worked very well. But where it did not all go away, it can now be found and liability assigned.
But somebody has to give a damn and try.
In 1957, E. N. Steele documented the effects of pulp mill pollution on native oyster stocks in “The Rise and Decline of the Olympia Oyster”. In his subsequent “The Immigrant Oyster” (1964), he specifically details the correlation between decreased oyster production in Samish Bay and increased pulp production at the Bellingham mill.
In 1960 and 1961, The University of Washington conducted “An Oceanographic Survey of the Bellingham-Samish Bay System” and produced “Special Report No. 32”. This survey documented Bellingham Bay’s “concentrating eddy”, establishing that Upper Bellingham Bay's potential for mixing was insufficient to disperse pollution from industrial discharges. Additionally, it was found that prevailing southerly winds tended to help sequester pollutants in the bay.
Bellingham’s first primary wastewater treatment plant was located in 1947 at the mouth of Whatcom Creek. It discharged into the “inner harbor” area of Bellingham Bay. By the late sixties, it had become self-evident that the outflow needed to be relocated to an area with better mixing. A new location was acquired at Post Point. A study of City-wide sewerage for the City of Bellingham included an option for G-P to participate in the municipal treatment service that was intended to be discharged at Post Point, south of the mixing threshold line.
G-P declined and in 1978 built the ASB Lagoon to provide its own wastewater treatment. The outfall extends through the non-mixing portion of Bellingham Bay, necessitating a state-approved “mixing zone” to meet discharge requirements with dilution values of 89:1 for the acute zone, and 265:1 for the chronic zone.
EVERYBODY KNEW
In 1953, hundreds of people in Minimata, Japan, began falling ill, exhibiting severe brain damage, blindness, and birth defects from eating fish heavily contaminated with mercury. Ten years later, while the G-P chlor-alkali facility was being permitted, Swedish researchers held a conference in Stockholm to present scientific findings that mercury levels in the environment were rising ominously and to issue warnings of the immanent threat to human health, the environment as well as food and water supplies.
By 1970, Norvald Fimreite, a graduate student at Western Ontario University, exposed the fact that fish in many lakes were contaminated with mercury. Ohio closed its portion of Lake Erie to commercial fishing. This revelation commenced events leading to the 1972 International Great Lakes Water Quality Agreement and the formation of the Great Lakes International Joint Commission. During this time, mercury-cell chlor-alkali facilities were eliminated from the Great Lakes basin to protect fish stocks.
By the early seventies, the World Health Organization had warned that mercury emissions were a global threat to food and water supplies.
In 1981, the first North Sea Convention identified chlor-alkali facilities as one of the largest threats to fisheries stocks.
Nevertheless, in 1964, G-P was allowed to locate mercury cells directly adjacent to Bellingham’s population and upwind of the municipal Water supply. Today, Whatcom County exhibits a higher than ordinary incidence of health effects commonly associated with mercury exposure, e.g. ADHD, Autism, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s and certain cancers.
Today, broken thermometers containing less than a tenth of a gram of mercury warrant a HazMat response protocol, yet hundreds of tons of unaccounted mercury in Bellingham are of no official concern.
NOBODY CARED
Despite world environmental professionals agreeing in the 1960s that mercury-cell chlor-alkali production was a health threat, officials in Bellingham, Whatcom County and the State of Washington fought off citizen challenges to issue permits for G-P.
Despite G-P repeatedly dumping mercury tainted sludge illegally, no regulatory enforcement ever required them to clean up a site.
Despite strong indications of health effects related to mercury exposure, the state has abstained from conducting a comprehensive health survey of the affected area, including the Lummi Nation - where more than thirty percent of some residents’ diets may originate in Bellingham Bay.
Despite the fact that atmospheric releases of mercury vapor are common to mercury-cell chlorine production, then Northwest Air Pollution Authority conducted a three year air quality study in downtown Bellingham without testing for the element. The final year of the study coincided with the decommissioning of the chlor-alkali plant.
Fugitive dust emissions from demolishing such facilities are known to pose mercury exposure risks, yet no monitoring was in place for the occasion. Similarly, landfilling demolition debris from such facilities has been shown to elevate mercury levels in fish population residing in ponds adjacent to the fill. Continued demolition at the site still presents a potential mercury exposure hazard.
G-P’s EGREGIOUS POLLUTION
G-P dumped mercury into the Whatcom Waterway. They illegally dumped mercury laden sludge around Star Rock, along the banks of Whatcom Creek at Haskell Business Park. They illegally dumped it in the vicinity of Bakerview and Hannegan. They illegally buried 15 tons of mercury at their mill site in the Chem-Fix sludge solidification project. G-P used private contractors to haul 100 tons of waste per day to unregulated dumpsites all over Whatcom County and into Skagit County.
When, in 1977, the State finally refused to approve several of the unregulated dump sites, G-P replied that they “must respectfully reject (the state’s) refusal to approve those sites”. Their argument hinged around the point that their permit only prohibited “direct” discharges to navigable waters” and that leachate from dump sites remote from such waters was therefore not in violation.
G-P received wood chips by barge in 500 ton lots. For each barge load of chips, they were required to receive two barges of hog fuel. The hog fuel boiler system was a principal source of energy in their process. It is suspected that mercury sludge could have been incorporated into boiler fuel as disposal regulations tightened. This is denied by G-P, but impossible to verify, as mercury would readily volatilize into the atmosphere, leaving little or no trace in the ash.
THE FIRST MERCURY RECOVERY UNIT
In the early seventies, as regulation of mercury sludge increased, G-P sought and received funding through the EPA for a Mercury Recovery Unit (MRU). This was a essentially a retort, a sludge roaster supposedly designed to recapture the mercury by condensing the vapor. After years of operation in downtown Bellingham, treating untold tons of sludge, the State DOE finally asked G-P to report on their progress with the federal grant project. G-P replied that while the MRU was very effective at removing mercury, they had as yet unfortunately not actually recovered any. DOE wished them luck in their continued attempts.
THE MISSING MERCURY
In 2003, it was discovered that industrial users of mercury were buying much more mercury than was accounted for in their reporting of self-monitored emissions and disposals. This has been a source of embarrassment to regulators and has spawned legislation attempting to phase out mercury-cells and tighten reporting requirements. The Chlorine Institute, a trade association representing chlor-alkali facilities said at least 30 tons were unaccounted for in 2003 – from six facilities. Even without the “missing mercury”, 2005 mercury releases from these mercury-cell chlor-alkali plants totaled one seventh the releases from 450 coal-fired power generators – meaning the average mercury-cell chlor-alkali facility emits nearly ten times as much mercury as an average coal-fired power generator.
A study by Environment Canada of a mercury-cell facility in Dalhousie, New Brunswick discovered that mercury air emissions averaged 15 to 20 times releases reported to receiving water bodies.
G-P admits releasing as much as 20 tons into Bellingham Bay. Given their record of violations and recalcitrant non-compliance, the figure is probably conservative. Following the Dalhousie conclusions, we might reasonably be concerned for the fate of another 400 missing tons of atmospheric releases. Plant Manager David Franklin admitted to the City Council that G-P needed to replace an average of 15 tons per year into their chlorine process. Having operated for about forty years, the public might therefore wonder about the fate of around 600 tons of missing mercury. Industry standards for this process of pulp production suggest that up to 200 grams of mercury could be consumed per ton of pulp produced. Bellingham produced 220,000 tons of pulp annually before permanent closure in 2001, suggesting the missing tonnage might approach 1,700 tons.
G-P also produced excess chlorine and caustic soda for the bulk chemical market. The chlor-alkali facility commenced operation at 122 tons per day. Capacity was increased in 1977 by 50 tons per day. By 1990, the plant produced 220 tons per day. Industry standards suggest 130 grams of mercury may be consumed per ton of chlorine produced. A roughly averaged production over forty years might therefore indicate 400 tons of unaccounted mercury were expended.
In any case, forming remedial plans that address only 35 tons without an accounting of G-P’s missing mercury leaves the public uninformed about a potentially serious health threat in the community.
LAKE WHATCOM
When elevated mercury levels were detected in tissue from fish in Lake Whatcom, the USGS performed a study entitled “Sources of Mercury in Sediments, Water and Fish of the Lakes of Whatcom County, Washington” (2004). The species of mercury detected in sediments and the distance of deposition from the facility indicated combustion, not vapor emission as a principle source. Curiously, in contradiction to G-P’s written response to DOE regarding their early Mercury Recovery Unit, the USGS was told that most of the mercury was recovered. USGS consequently attributed the problem to municipal solid waste incinerators and the City’s sewage treatment incinerator.
THE CHEMICAL INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION
Bill Moyers amply documented meetings in the 1970s by the Chemical Industry Association in which they explored ways to avoid waste regulation by creating products for sale to members, or the public. G-P is listed in the minutes as an attendee.
Others have shown that “inactive ingredients” in bulk commodities like detergents or fertilizers were often materials of no use to the product that should have been disposed according to hazardous waste regulation.
For instance, G-P produced a “drilling mud” for the oil industry from their lignin, “black liquor” waste. This mud was injected down drill holes to maintain a hydrostatic head and to lubricate the drill. Commonly witnessed reproductive failures in fish populations around offshore oil drilling platforms led to the discovery of mercury hotspots not attributable to local geology.
G-P also sold their own forestry division a black liquor product for dust suppression on roads. This material was routinely used throughout the Lake Whatcom and Nooksack River watersheds on company logging roads. Our volcanic geology is often cited as the cause for elevated background levels of mercury in the Nooksack River entering Bellingham Bay. However, no cinnabar deposits have ever been identified in the region. It is possible that mercury from G-P’s dumpsites and dust suppression activities contribute to these elevated levels.
MERCURY PERSISTS AND CYCLES IN THE ENVIRONMENT
Numerous studies have shown elevated mercury concentrations in air, soil and vegetation near mercury-cell chlor-alkali facilities. This loading generally begins approaching normal levels within 5 kilometers of the facility. However, deposition is presumed to occur much farther away, dependent upon meteorological conditions. Rain effectively scrubs mercury vapor from the air column. Mercury vapor flux is a matter of more recent research.
In Burlington, Georgia, the LCP facility was found to exhibit significant mercury vapor flux more than a mile away. Subsequent to the study, contaminated materials containing more than 200 tons of mercury were removed from the site.
In Germany, a study of an abandoned chlor-alkali facility showed mercury vapor levels at 100 times normal one kilometer upwind of the plant. Contaminated soils were again identified as the source.
In California, scores of municipal water supplies are monitoring an increase in mercury suspected of arriving at reservoirs after more than a century of cycling down-gradient from earlier gold mining operations in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. G-P’s Whatcom County dumpsites could remain a long-term source of mercury in the environment.
The recent theory of “Natural Recovery” exploits elevated background mercury levels to mask releases from contaminated sediments in Bellingham Bay and to suggest that no action is required. However, it is well documented that elemental mercury entrained in anaerobic bacteria becomes alkylated and bio-accumulative. Bio-accumulative forms of mercury present a long-term health risk because levels gradually work their way up the food chain.
Bacteria are not long lived. When they die, the mercury is released again into the environment, often bubbling out of the sediments to proceed downwind as methylated vapor until sticking to objects, washing off, re-entering water or soils, becoming entrained again and eventually accumulating up the chain in a never-ending cycle.
A full accounting of all mercury consumed in G-P’s process is in the public’s best health interest and should be important to any comprehensive plan of remediation.
MERCURY ACTIVELY DISASSEMBLES NEURONS
The University of Calgary has documented with disturbing video-micrographs the mechanism by which mercury strips micro-tubules from the micro-fibrils of active neurite processes, leaving tangled, unsupported fibrils such as is typically seen in a number of chronic, wasting health syndromes. This video is available on-line.
REMEDIAL ALTERNATIVES
For about ten years, representatives of 14 agencies met periodically for lunch to formulate ten remedial alternatives for the Bellingham Bay Action Plan. Alternative A was a stock no-action alternative. The action alternatives contemplated the removal of between 160,000 and 1,900,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment, not including the ASB lagoon.
Within a month of the Port’s purchase and sales agreement with the Port, Alternative K was framed and for all practical purposes adopted as the preferred alternative. It relies upon the theory of Natural Recovery to justify capping of contaminant in situ, focusing removals on the ASB in preparation for its conversion to a marina.
So far there has been no public dialog on the potential of the ASB to support waterfront businesses with family wage jobs or to serve the community’s future wastewater or stormwater treatment requirements, thus protecting bay restoration investments from recontamination.
IT GETS EXPENSIVE
At Onandaga Lake in New York, Honeywell and subsidiary Allied Signal were assessed $50 million to clean up 165,000 pounds of mercury. It was estimated that assessing the company for natural resource damages could add an additional $2.3 billion. The company proposed a plan of limited dredging and extensive capping that could cost $210 million.
Cleaning up 15 tons of mercury at a Swedish chlor-alkali facility was projected to cost more than $15 million in 2003.
Duracell spent $13 million to remove 30,000 tons of contaminated soil from a North Carolina Facility. Another $6 million was spent on test wells. The company will incur additional expense remediating mercury found in soils beyond the facility’s grounds.
In 2002, a federal Judge in Maine found that mercury extending to off-site areas near a closed chemical plant could pose a threat to public health and the environment. The former owner had agreed to clean-up 80 tons of mercury left at the site and to remediate almost four miles of the Penobscot River. The judge found that they could be held liable for extended clean-ups regulators deemed necessary.
According to the Sediment Management Work Group, actual project costs for contaminated sediment removal range between $220 and $1,670 per cubic yard. Given remedial alternatives ranging between 160,000 and 1,900,000 cubic yards of sediment removal, really cleaning up all the contaminated sediments could cost between $418 million and $1.5 billion.
THE PORT’S AGREEMENT
In 2001, when G-P announced permanent closure, the Port of Bellingham was quick to seize the opportunity to acquire the property. Rather than hold G-P accountable for their environmental liabilities, the Port assumed them in exchange for a $10 price for the property. The Port entered a complex purchase and sales agreement that included the involvement of one of the world’s largest insurers, AIG. In a wholesale reversal of normal legal precedent, the parties agreed to a procedure which made them all partners in agreeing to avoid costs, share expenses and defer G-P’s liability under the law to a last resort.
Some provisions of the agreement are simple, if shocking. The Port agreed to accept the lowest cost remedial alternative and foot the bill for any additional measures. The Port agreed to defend G-P from any claims. The Port also agreed not to prospect for any additional environmental liabilities.
PENALTIES CAN BE SERIOUS
Three officers and managers of LCP Chemicals of Brunswick, Ga., were convicted of violating various environmental protection laws, conspiracy to violate the Clean Water Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, knowingly endangering employees and a variety of other environmental offenses.
The Chairman of the Board was sentenced to serve nine years in prison and pay a $20,000 fine. The Plant Manager was sentenced to six and one-half years in prison.
CONSUMER BRANDING
As G-P commenced closure, they also announced a major shift in corporate strategy. They would phase out primary chemical production and focus on branding of their consumer products. Their first advertising effort featured account executives sprouting out of a forest floor and emphasized their corporate environmental responsibility.
The necessity for products to maintain a high level of environmental integrity in today’s consumer market meant the Port had an opportunity to negotiate a much more comprehensive arrangement. The Port instead entered into an agreement that hamstrings their ability to protect the community that supports them. However, G-P’s market vulnerability still exists for other future negotiations.
MERCURY VAPOR MONITORING
Quantified evidence is the key to pinpointing liability. Because mercury persists and cycles through the environment, it can be measured. Mercury is known to flux during periods of insolation, even during cold temperatures. Clear skies and warm temperatures cause the highest levels of flux. Rain effectively scrubs vapor from the air column. Therefore, summer is the best time to implement a monitoring regime in this climate.
Tekran mercury vapor monitors have been successfully employed to record mercury vapor flux on and around facilities and disposal sites. Monitors can be placed around sites and correlated with wind direction and temperatures, allowing detection of hidden sites and hotspots on known sites. Mobile monitors can quickly measure plume dispersion and supply Gaussian models with traverse data that can predict the source and extent of the problem.
There is no dispute that mercury is a singularly potent threat to human health and the environment. The age-old strategy of hiding it wherever it will go away worked very well. But where it did not all go away, it can now be found and liability assigned.
But somebody has to give a damn and try.
6 Comments