Pulp mill polluter blocks results of EPA tests
The agency tested for the poison dioxin. But Perry's
largest employer contends that what's in its
wastewater is confidential.
By JULIE HAUSERMAN
St. Petersburg Times
October 19, 2000
TALLAHASSEE -- More than a year ago, federal
scientists took samples near one of Florida's most polluted rivers to see if a
pulp mill was releasing dioxin, an industrial poison that can cause cancer and
harm wildlife. But now, the government won't release
all of the data, even though taxpayers paid the U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency to take samples on
Taylor County's Fenholloway River in the first place. The reason: The polluting company, Tennessee-based
Buckeye Florida, is blocking the release of all but
one of the test results, claiming that telling the
public what's in the plant's wastewater and sludge is
"confidential business information." By law, the EPA
has to review the claim. "We don't think a Tennessee
corporation should block information that Floridians
have a right to. We ask the EPA to give us what we
paid for," said Steve Medina, a lawyer who has been
working to clean up the Fenholloway. On Wednesday,
Clean Water Network took its case to the public. The
group says people have a right to know how much dioxin
the EPA found, and in a $50,000 radio advertising
campaign that will air in Tallahassee and Gainesville, the group urges listeners to call EPA
Administrator Carol Browner to demand the information.
"We bent over backward to be patient," said Linda
Young, Clean Water Network's southeastern coordinator.
The fight to get the test results is part of a long
battle over pollution from the giant pulp mill, which
is the largest employer in Perry, the small county
seat of Taylor County in Florida's Big Bend. The
Fenholloway was once lush, with springs, a health
resort and a bottling plant along its banks. Today,
the Fenholloway's black water has killed sea grasses
for miles out in the gulf. Private wells in Perry have
been polluted. Some fish in the river are starting to
change sexes. Some insects there are deformed. And
dioxin, which comes from chlorine bleaching, has
accumulated in river sediment, possibly threatening
wildlife. All the pollution was perfectly legal under
a special state law that made the Fenholloway the only
Florida river set aside for purely industrial use. The
law was rescinded, but the waters remain polluted. Clean Water Network knew the EPA tested for dioxin in
May and July of 1999, and continually asked for the
results. This week, the EPA finally released one set
of results, which didn't detect dioxin at the mill's
discharge pipe. The other test results -- more
sophisticated water measurements and a look at
Buckeye's prodigious volumes of black waste sludge --
are being withheld. A spokeswoman for the pulp mill,
Sondra Dowdell, says releasing the results would give
secrets to competitors. "We're not blocking any
information except what we consider confidential
business information," Dowdell said. "We comply with
all permits. We are moving forward to restore that
river." Consumer products giant Procter & Gamble
opened the mill on the Fenholloway River in 1954 and
ran it for decades, turning pine trees into pulp that
goes into everything from disposable diapers to rayon,
explosives and sausage casings. In the early 1990s,
P&G sold the mill to a group of its former executives, who renamed it Buckeye. P&G is still the
mill's
largest customer. Today, the Buckeye mill is operating
on an expired permit with pollution rules that were
written 10 years ago. The mill has spent millions to modernize. But its voluminous output on the tiny river
takes a toll. Each day, the mill pumps up 51-million
gallons of groundwater, mixes it with chemicals to
"cook" pine trees and extract cellulose, then sends
the treated waste into the 21-mile-long Fenholloway.
Buckeye and the Florida Department of Environmental
Protection want to clean the Fenholloway by pumping
the mill's waste into a 15-mile pipeline,which would
empty at the river's mouth, near sensitive marine
nursery grounds in the Gulf of Mexico, north of Cedar
Key. In 1998, the EPA objected to the pipeline plan,
and promised to hold a hearing. Two years later, the
hearing still hasn't been scheduled.
