5/3 Peninsula Daily News
Paper mill’s cogeneration plant touted to Chamber of Commerce audience
By Charlie Bermant
PORT TOWNSEND — The biomass cogeneration plan proposed by the Port Townsend Paper Corp. mill will provide essential support for regional education and health care as well as the economy, according to information presented to the Jefferson County Chamber of Commerce on Monday.
“These kinds of jobs are needed in order to supply our health care,” Team Jefferson chair Bill Wise said of the jobs he said will be created and sustained by the biomass project.
—The mill, which refuses to talk to the press, and seems to enforce a PR blackout, comes out of the cone of silence to issue essentially a marketing pitch that promotes health by building the plant. I recommend considering the source, and doing some research yourself to find out if these claims are true. – Editor
Filed under: Puget Sound | Tagged: cogeneration, paper mill, Port Townsend, Puget Sound |
I understood that biomass burning without great controls emits hazardous waste into the air including forms of dioxin and a form of sulphur that converts to acid affecting if not killing downwind forests and fauna at the lowest levels.Human health hazards are another concern. The biomass burnings of pulp mills that used waste as a fuel for internal use when closed left large hazardous waste cleanup sites downwind, at ash disposal sites that leach dioxin and other pollutants into watersheds–often from municipal landfills that accept the ash as part of the cost to the community–and leaching onsite areas. Controls must be in force before permitting to eliminate these external costs to the communities during operation and later to the public if the mill closes without funding cleanup. The waste products need separate controlled disposal sites for the ash that comes from these facilities. There are many studies available of the cleanup problems on such mills once closed. Examples in Port Angeles, Sitka, Alaska and Ketchican, Alaska are local examples. Questions to ask include what process is used to bleach the paper–chlorine adds to the disposal problems; what process is used to break down the wood to cellulose adding its chemistry to the biomass to be burned; what are the additives to achieve sedimentation of the process liquids and what is their effect on the biomass and burn ash; what is expected PH and how is it buffered and where is it discharged. Everything ends up in Puget Sound: waste product must be stopped before it gets there under any permit being considered.