Mill worker points to 'smoking gun' on chemical dump

Jul. 15—CANTON — As Dylan Packer, a stock tender on the #19 paper machine, was monitoring his gauges during the last week of the Pactiv Evergreen's operations in Canton, he saw something was seriously wrong.

The hypochlorite level went from a full storage tank down to zero at an alarming rate. Once the tank was emptied, he said, it was filled up with water and emptied again to rinse it out.

Hypochlorite is considered a hazardous material, "bleach on steroids," as Packer referred to it, and it was the most harmful chemical of all the ones he routinely monitored during his shift.

It wasn't just hypochlorite that was being dumped into the wastewater treatment system and then released into the Pigeon River, Packer said.

"They dumped everything in the whole damn mill. We kept saying, 'This ain't right. It goes against everything we were taught,'" he said. "They were rinsing everything, flushing all the pipes and pushing all that to the run tank. There are hundreds of miles of pipes, and everything across the whole mill got pushed into the sewer."

When Packer brought the unusual monitor readings to the attention of his co-workers and notified upper mill management, all were told to "just do it," he said.

With the threat of losing their severance and other benefits hanging over their heads, workers did as they were told, Packer said.

While some of the chemicals routinely monitored weren't hazardous, that wasn't the case with hypochlorite.

"The standard was always to not have a major release of hypochlorite because it will destroy the good bacteria in the waste treatment system and they didn't want it to get in the river," he said. "If we ever saw a major leak of hypochlorite, we had a problem."

Those who worked with the chemical knew well its corrosive properties. While household bleach has a 1 to 2% concentration of hypochlorite, the industrial standard is between 14-16%, he said.

"If it splashes on your pants, it will eat them off of you before you can get changed," Packer said. "I've had it eat a hole in my boots. I can't imagine it is good for fish."

Mill cited

On July 11, the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality sent a notice of violation to Pactiv Evergreen for violating three sections of state law following a chemical dump into the river.

The violation notice mentioned a complaint from workers who said the mill was dumping sodium hydroxide solution and calcium hypochlorite directly into the wastewater treatment system. Photos accompanying the complaint showed chemical totes with a hose leading into the drain.

After the June complaint, an investigation was launched, which led to the violation notice. The complaint narrative states "facility staff indicated that raw or unused materials and product (i.e., virgin chemicals) could in fact be disposed of through the wastewater system and that these activities (e.g., discharging unused or raw chemicals) were compliant with their NPDES permit. Additionally, facility representatives stated that this type of process was inherent to the shutdown operations."

These statements contradict information shared with mill staff shortly after the shutdown was announced. DWR staff specifically stated that the dumping, disposal or discharge of unused or virgin chemical products or materials into the NPDES permitted wastewater system is prohibited.

Whistle blower

While not one of the original whistle blowers, after reading the DEQ violation notice letter, Packer knew he needed to speak out.

"They're talking about 250-gallon totes," he said of the reports mentioned in the notice. "I watched a whole bulk storage tank of hypochlorite disappear, and that's thousands of gallons."

The role of a stock tender is to monitor equipment showing pulp flows and chemical flows coming into the system as well as bulk storage levels and various other processes.

"All those flows trended," Packer said. "A second-by-second trend would show the bulk storage level going from what you had to zero. Watching all the levels when they're running is like a concert. All has to be running together. I was at the heart of that."

While Packer and other stock tenders he's talked with have no photographic proof of what happened such as those who made the initial complaint, a review of the digital control system for the company's internal monitoring system will provide investigators all they need to know, he said.

"All that information exists in the DCS profile," he said. "I don't know how it could be accessed from outside, but the whole point of DCS is data. If information is still intact, it's right there. ... It was outside the normal standard those last two days."

Potential impacts

Josh Kastrinsky, the public information office for DEQ's Division of Water Resources, said there is a process to confirm details passed on in complaints, adding the more details provided, the better. Complaints can even be filed anonymously, he added.

As to any lingering effects of the chemical dump, Kastrinski said the impacts on aquatic life and surface water quality depend on several factors: the contaminant involved, quantity, precipitation and distance from impacted communities.

"In the case of Pactiv Evergreen's permit, DWR has been monitoring water quality in the Pigeon River weekly since the Pactiv Evergreen shutdown announcement this spring and plans a biological survey of the surrounding area this summer to gauge some broader impacts," he said.

The notice of violation letter gave the company 10 days to respond by providing a description of all unused materials or chemicals, including volumes, discharged to the wastewater system from the beginning of the transition shutdown period, including discharges by third parties working at the facility.

The company was also asked to provide documents, rule citations or permit conditions to support their position that the chemical releases into the wastewater system were allowable, and to provide details regarding the photos submitted in the complaint.

"The mill was very important to this area, and I defended it for them," Packer said of the nearly 13 years he worked there. "But to do this on the way out with all the financial devastation, you're going to devastate my river and my community? They should be held accountable for their actions. They were not good planners, they were not good managers and that held true right up to the end."