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Department of Ecology News Release - April 26, 2001
01-064
OLYMPIA - The Washington Department of Ecology (Ecology) has fined the Georgia-Pacific Mill at Camas $10,000 and ordered its owners to pay for an independent evaluation of the recently modified system where the foul-smelling emission occurred on Feb. 15.
"We have reviewed the mill's own investigation and modifications to the system and believe an outside evaluation will help us determine if the changes will prevent a reoccurrence of what happened on Feb. 15," said Carol Kraege, who manages industrial permitting at Ecology. "We think the modified system will work, but we want a second opinion."
Kraege said it is unusual for Ecology to request an independent evaluation of the industries it oversees through the permits it administers, but "this was an unusual event that had serious community consequences."
The evaluation is to be performed by non-mill employees within six months. Key requirements include evaluating the mill's training program, its non-condensible gas treatment system, system testing protocols, and the adequacy of systems to keep gas from being released.
The evaluation must recommend a method for notifying appropriate regulatory agencies, local governments and the public when a gas release occurs. In addition, it must recommend how weather should be factored into efforts to minimize effects in the neighboring community.
"We believe the evaluation will show we have successfully modified our system so we are able to switch our non-condensible gas burning from one process to another without venting to the atmosphere in a planned or an unplanned basis," said Jim Cadd, who manages the mill. "We are doing our utmost to comply with the Department of Ecology's requirements."
The mill's investigation reported that there were three gas releases, lasting a total of 25 minutes that occurred while the mill was shutting down the recovery furnace for repairs.
The first release, from 12:10 to 12:20 p.m., was caused by overloading in the gas line that tripped a fan. The second, at 12:34 to 12:44 p.m., was due to an erroneous reading from the new transfer system. The third release, at 1:13 to 1:18 p.m., was normal venting caused while transferring gases between the recovery furnace and the lime kiln.
Contact: Sandy Howard, public information manager, 360-407-6239
Copyright © Washington State Department of Ecology. See http://www.ecy.wa.gov/copyright.html.
