SC knew about poisoned water for 16 years but only recently fined Pee Dee company

On the sandy plain of eastern South Carolina are 125 acres of open land that a respected company has used for years to discharge waste from its industrial operations.

The discharge was allowed under state law, as long as Sonoco Products followed the rules and was careful not to pollute groundwater. But Sonoco didn’t follow the rules in spraying waste sludge on its property — and groundwater at the disposal site has been poisoned for years.

Now, questions are surfacing about potential threats from the polluted groundwater and why state regulators didn’t stop the contamination when they were told of the problem 16 years ago.

The S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control only recently made an enforcement case against Sonoco, fining the paper packaging corporation nearly $25,000 over nitrate contamination in groundwater. The order also told the company to scale back the waste disposal on land.

Nitrate, which is dangerous to people who drink high levels of the compound in their water, was documented as far back as 2005 at the Sonoco waste disposal site in Darlington County. But other than this year’s DHEC fine, the agency’s enforcement database does not show any major enforcement action against Sonoco over the sludge.

Had the nitrate pollution been dealt with years ago, state regulators could have ensured that people who rely on private wells near the Sonoco site weren’t at risk, say environmental lawyers familiar with groundwater pollution.

“This is an incredibly long period of time,’’ said Gary Poliakoff, an environmental lawyer from Spartanburg who has represented citizens on industrial pollution issues for decades. “The big environmental question I’d ask is, with that contaminated groundwater, ‘Is anybody drinking the water?’ ’’

As it stands, private and public wells near the disposal grounds are not known to be polluted with unsafe levels of nitrate, according to Sonoco and DHEC.

Sonoco has found no “plausible pathway’’ for the nitrate to get into drinking water wells near the disposal site, said spokesman Roger Schrum. A nearby stream called Black Creek, for instance, acts as a barrier to groundwater moving away from the site, he said, noting that the company is working to resolve DHEC’s concerns.

“No public water supply wells or public water intake are within a half-mile radius,’’ he said in an email. The email said 13 private wells within a half-mile of the site are either uphill from the spray fields or are on the other side of Black Creek.

DHEC says it has not tested private wells for nitrate pollution near the disposal area, but Sonoco’s studies do not indicate a need to.

In an email to The State, DHEC also said it did not issue the $24,840 fine until this year because of “limited staffing.’’ The lack of staff forced the agency to set priorities, but the department hopes to get more resources to help out, the email said.

Poliakoff and environmental attorney Bob Guild of Columbia are skeptical of assurances from Sonoco and DHEC. While Sonoco and DHEC say there is no nitrate pollution now, that could change, the lawyers said.

Properly characterizing the flow of groundwater can be tricky, so more study would provide a better picture about the extent of the nitrate contamination, said Guild, who has handled some of the state’s biggest pollution cases in the past three decades.

“How can they just be so cavalier at Sonoco and say ‘hey, no problem?,’’ Guild asked.

Nitrate, a form of nitrogen associated with sludge, can be toxic if people are exposed in high enough amounts. It can increase cancer risks and damage an adult’s thyroid.

The compound is particularly dangerous to young children. Infants who drink baby formula with high nitrate levels can develop a bluish-gray skin color, become lethargic and fall into comas if exposure is substantial and the problem isn’t properly treated, experts say.

Assuming private wells are safe now, there’s no guarantee nitrate pollution wasn’t a problem in the past, Guild said. Nitrate from the disposal ground also could be seeping into nearby streams, such as Black Creek, Poliakoff and Guild said.

At the very least, the contamination deserved DHEC’s attention long before the agency announced the nearly $25,000 fine last week, they said. The department could have required Sonoco to improve its wastewater treatment process with a tougher discharge permit, which could have reduced the threat of sludge tainting groundwater, Guild said.

Beloved company

Sonoco’s wastewater discharge permit expired in 2013, meaning it is still operating under older standards.

“They delayed upgrading the plant,’’ Guild said. “They should have been required by DHEC to upgrade their wastewater treatment system.’’

DHEC officials said they have not issued a new permit for a variety of reasons, including “difficulty in receiving a complete and accurate permit application from Sonoco.’’

The agency said a lack of available agency staffing, as well as “deficiencies with the land application practices,’’ contributed to the failure to issue a new permit.

Sludge, a semi-solid material generated by wastewater plants and industries, is used across the state as a way to both dispose of the waste and fertilize fields with nutrients contained in the material. The state limits how much can be applied to protect groundwater and rivers.

The Sonoco sludge disposal issue near Hartsville is the second to surface recently in Darlington County, a largely rural area between Columbia and Florence best known for stock car racing and farming.

Just before Thanksgiving, The State reported that drinking water wells in the Society Hill area had been polluted with PFAS, an emerging class of toxic chemicals, near an abandoned industry’s sludge disposal fields. Industrial sludge from the Galey and Lord plant had been used to fertilize crops, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

At Sonoco, DHEC said the only known pollution is from nitrate.

By some accounts, Sonoco is one of South Carolina’s most respected industries.

The company, headquartered in the small town of Hartsville, is a paper and plastics packaging manufacturer that has grown from a small local operation to an international corporation with annual net sales of $5.2 billion.

Worldwide, it employs some 19,000 people and has offices in more than 30 countries. One University of South Carolina study said the company contributes $1 billion a year to the state’s economy.

Founded more than a century ago, Sonoco routinely receives accolades for its community work and for its economic impact on the state. The company also takes pride in what it considers sustainable initiatives and has been named one of the 100 most sustainable companies for three consecutive years. Fortune named Sonoco one of the world’s most admired companies for 2021.

In 2021, Sonoco’s president and chief executive officer, Howard Coker, also received the state Chamber of Commerce’s business leader of the year award for practicing “ethical conduct and corporate responsibility,’’ as well as creating a business climate to improve the state’s economy.

The problems at Sonoco caught agency board member Rick Lee off guard when he learned about the violations last week.

“I was surprised by the size of the penalty and the issue that I was reading about,’’ he said during DHEC’s Dec. 9 board meeting.

Despite its status in the community and across the state, Sonoco has at times run into trouble with environmental regulators. In 2015, DHEC penalized the company $230,000 for operating an unauthorized coal ash dump. The DHEC board questioned whether the fine, levied by agency staff, was too heavy.

Persistent pollution

Sonoco’s sludge disposal operation that drew this year’s fine results from its failure to resolve problems through the years.

The enforcement order shows that nitrate levels exceeded the safe drinking water limit from 2005 to 2016 in two wells below the waste disposal area.

In 2017, two more wells showed nitrate levels above the safe drinking water limit. A year later, the agency found elevated nitrate levels in five wells, the order said.

DHEC said Tuesday that groundwater is still polluted. At least two monitoring wells had nitrate above the safe drinking water standard this year, the department said.

Agency officials were worried enough about the nitrate pollution to write Sonoco a letter in October 2014, advising the company to reduce the amount of nitrate sprayed onto the land, look for another way to dispose of sludge and improve its crop management.

The agency’s letter also asked Sonoco to increase the size of the field where the sludge material was sprayed and assess the extent of the nitrate pollution.

But as recently as 2019, DHEC inspectors found deficiencies at the company’s waste disposal site, including “over-application of industrial sludge,’’ the enforcement document said.

The May 9, 2019, site review by DHEC also noted that the land had “poor cover crop growth,’’ indicating there wasn’t enough vegetation on the property to soak up the nitrate so that it didn’t pollute groundwater.

The review found “excessive’’ nutrients in the soil and nitrate levels in groundwater above the government’s safe drinking water limit in monitoring wells on the land application site. In addition, sludge had been applied within about 30 feet of “waters of the state,’’ which typically means a creek or river.

Company spokesman Schrum, a vice president with Sonoco, said the business is working to resolve the problems.

In addition to the $24,840 fine, DHEC’s enforcement order against Sonoco requires the company to look more carefully at the groundwater to gain a better understanding of the contamination. Sonoco must add 17 new groundwater monitoring stations and sample groundwater every quarter, according to the order.

Sonoco expects to reduce the amount of sludge it produces in wastewater by up to 50 percent as part of a major plant expansion and upgrade, Schrum said. The more than $100 million project is expected to be complete later this year, according to DHEC.

Sonoco also has adopted new practices that allow vegetation to soak up more nitrate, which reduces the threat to groundwater, Schrum said.

In addition, Sonoco has stopped using disposal grounds with high nitrate levels. The efforts have helped improve groundwater, Schrum said.

“This is something that we’ve recognized and worked with DHEC on to come to a resolution, and we’re going to continue to work to remedy the issue,’’ Schrum said.