Long-term health of US waterways examined in paper mill effluent study

By James McLaren, Senior Editor, PPI Pulp & Paper Week, RISI

SAN FRANCISCO, May 15, 2009 (RISI) - The first eight years of a comprehensive monitoring study involving the National Council for Air and Stream Improvement to understand the effects of pulp and paper mill effluent discharges in four US streams is being reported in a special section in the April 2009 issue of the journal Integrated Environmental Assessment and Management.

The pulp and paper mill effluent study is a voluntary initiative funded by the forest products industry through membership in NCASI, a nonprofit research organization. The study is on-going, and expected to continue for several more years as a research program involving 27 scientists representing eight US universities and research institutions. The work was not conducted in response to any state or federal regulatory requirements.

The four waterways included in the study have supported pulp and paper mills for several decades. The waterways are the Codorus Creek in Pennsylvania, the Leaf River in Mississippi, and the McKenzie River and Willamette River in Oregon.

"These streams represent both coldwater and warmwater streams, a variety of mill processing types, and a range of effluent concentrations," IEAM said.

Because the impact of pulp and paper mill effluent on river ecology may vary due to natural seasonal or year-to-year differences and human use of the watershed, the study not only aims to address point-source effects from pulp and paper mill discharges, but also aims to understand the larger spatial scale of any impacts at a watershed scale and over a multi-year time period.

"The ecological data collected from this study will allow the forest products industry to further refine future environmental strategies for pulp and paper companies by examining mill discharges with both short- and long- term changes to aquatic life," the authors said. Replicating the study in four waterways provides a foundation for capturing and understanding variability in the natural environment.

Full text of the article.

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