News

'A disaster that miraculously did not happen'

3/29/14

As a barrage of rain poured down on the Samoa pulp mill's corroding storage tanks, Environmental Protection Agency Regional Administrator Jared Blumenfeld took the opportunity to explain why the millions of gallons of hazardous liquids contained inside must be removed.

”When it rains, the tanks fill up because they are not properly covered,” Blumenfeld said. “Literally, with the rain today, if we weren't pumping it out, they could overflow.”

Blumenfeld was one of several government officials who gathered at the run-down mill to watch the start of the multi-agency effort to remove and transport nearly 4 million gallons of hazardous liquids and toxic sludge from the Samoa site to a pulp mill in Longview, Wash.

The hazardous state of the 72-acre site -- owned by the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District since August -- was brought to the EPA's attention by the Wiyot Tribe, which urged the agency to investigate, Blumenfeld said. When EPA inspectors went to the site in September, Blumenfeld said they found “an enormous mess,” which initiated an emergency response.

The points of concern were the nearly 3 million gallons of caustic liquor -- chemical liquids used to break down wood chips into pulp material for paper products -- 10,000 gallons of sulfuric acid and 10,000 tons of “highly corrosive sludge” being stored in leaking, corroding storage tanks throughout the mill.

With the mill nestled between the Pacific Ocean and Humboldt Bay, Blumenfeld said it was “a disaster that miraculously did not happen.”

”When you add up the three factors -- the huge amount of poorly contained, hazardous materials located on a fault line between two incredibly important water bodies, that's why it's nationally significant,” he said.

With seismic events like the magnitude-6.8 earthquake that struck on March 9 increasing the likelihood of the chemicals spilling into the surrounding waters, EPA federal on-scene coordinator Steve Calanog said they “can't afford much more time.”

”If released into the environment, it would have an immediate effect on the bay and its ecosystems, and would effect the seafood and shellfish industry immediately,” Calanog said.

Cleanup workers from the EPA and the U.S. Coast Guard Pacific Strike Team began pumping the first batches of the caustic liquid from the tanks into two storage trucks on Friday morning. Calanog said that these will be the first of an estimated 800 trucks loads that will make the 460-mile drive to the pulp mill in Longview, Wash., where they will be reused. To ensure safety, Calanog said the trucks will only transport the materials out of the mill during daylight hours.

California 2nd District Congressman Jared Huffman attended the cleanup and thanked all of the county and federal agencies who “stepped up for this community and brought it to this point.”

”The fact that we made it through and got the EPA to come out here to secure the chemicals, that we made it through despite the government shutdown, it's nothing short of remarkable,” Huffman said.

Liquids located in areas inaccessible to trucks were pumped through a pipeline provided by the Pacific Strike Team into 10 temporary storage tanks, which will later be transported over to the trucks. Strike team workers elevated on cherry pickers held pipes that sucked in the liquors from holes cut into the top of the tanks. Calanog said this is “a slow and tedious process, and very dangerous.” Any contact with the liquors can cause severe chemical burns, he said.

Though the mill has changed hands several times since it was built about 50 years ago, Blumenfeld said one of its previous owners -- Evergreen Pulp Inc. -- is mainly responsible for the mess.

”This is the responsibility of the company that left in the middle of the night, and left this exactly as we found it a few months ago,” he said.

Blumenfeld said a good portion of the cleanup costs will be paid off by selling millions of dollars worth of scrap material from the mill, but “we will still go after the responsible parties.”

”We work to assign responsibility legally,” he said. “In some cases -- which partly applies to this one -- even if we wanted sue them, some of the people have no money.”

Huffman said the cleanup is “just the beginning” of an “exciting and ambitious vision” to turn the blighted mill into an economy opportunity that will create jobs.

”We're going to see it put to work for aquaculture, for sustainable, renewable energy research,” he said.

This vision came closer to reality after the Board of Supervisors approved a $100,000 community development block grant application from the county Administrative Office and the harbor district on Tuesday. The grant would pay for a feasibility and planning study that would “identify and analyze the highest and best uses for the site,” according to a county staff report.

Blumenfeld said that if all works according to plan, all of the liquor and sludge could be off the site in eight months. In the meantime, he said he's comfortable knowing that progress is being made.

”At least in the next week, as the levels go down and down, the risk diminishes accordingly,” Blumenfeld said.

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3/27/14

When the undulations of the March 9 earthquake rousted Jack Crider from his sleep, his first thoughts were the Samoa pulp mill; specifically, the nearly 3 million gallons of caustic fluids poised to spill out of old, failing storage tanks and into Humboldt Bay.

Those liquors — remnants of the pulp mill's production days — have been a threat to the bay for years, and even a gentle rolling earthquake like that one was enough to motivate Crider, CEO of the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation District, to put on his shoes, grab a flashlight and head down to the mill to look for leaks. He was the only one poking around the old tanks that night, but half a dozen concerned community members called him the next morning. People are worried about those liquors.

A couple weeks later, Crider stands on a tarpaper surface 200 feet above the sands of the Samoa Peninsula, beaming at the structures and piles of rubble below as gusts of cold ocean air ruffle his hair.

He paces across the broad, flat roof of the Samoa pulp mill's boiler, the hulking monolith unused since 2008 that once spewed stinky white steam into the air above Humboldt Bay. From the dizzying height of the county's tallest building, Crider excitedly points out the improvements and potential of the 72-acre mill site that his agency acquired in August.

In that short time, the harbor district has gotten rid of and secured hazardous chemicals around the old mill. And a steady stream of trucks is scheduled to soon begin hauling the remaining pulping liquors — millions of gallons of ultra-basic chemicals — up to Washington, where they will be reused.

Crider and the harbor district aren't the only ones relieved to see the liquors going — The Environmental Protection Agency and local oyster farmers are thrilled, too. And you should be, if you recreate on the bay, enjoy local shellfish or benefit from Humboldt County's economy. Those chemicals, housed for the last six years in failing and nearly overflowing tanks, have been threatening the economy and health of Humboldt Bay, with every tremor or rainstorm increasing the danger.

But safety is nearly here, as well as a new life for the Humboldt Bay property.

When the harbor district acquired the pulp mill after a year of negotiations, the district board and staff knew they were in for a large project.

Concerned about the security of the estimated 4 million gallons of pulping liquors, the caustic fluid used to turn wood into pulp, the district asked EPA coordinator Steve Calanog to inspect the site.

"I was out there earlier doing some work on Indian Island and the harbor district acquired the pulp mill and asked me to come over and take a look," Calanog said. "I determined there was quite a bit of hazardous material and began to initiate an emergency response."

By that point the tanks were nearly overflowing as years of rainwater had accumulated in them. But quick action was no guarantee — the federal sequester was about to begin.

"That was a time of real political turmoil," said North Coast Congressman Jared Huffman. "When the concern about leakage arose it was at the worst possible time — it was right as we were heading into a government shutdown."

Huffman said he and his staff pressed for federal funding on the site, "but to EPA's credit they responded immediately — they understood what was at stake here."

The uncertainties didn't end there. EPA began searching for a barge company that could transport the liquors — 3 million gallons, after some measurements — and a pulp mill that would accept them. One solution came from Capstone Paper in Longview, Wash., a town of about 36,000 on the Columbia River. The company will boil the liquors down and reuse them. No money will change hands over the liquors, Calanog said.

But shipping the liquors has been frustrating for the agencies and will be costly. Anticipating that the liquors would be shipped by barge, the harbor district rebuilt its dock, brought in temporary tanks and laid down a large network of large black pipes. But the barge fell through. Longview's port demanded $800,000 worth of improvements in order to offload liquors there and coast guard-approved chemical barges are scarce on the West Coast, Crider said.

The EPA is still searching for a barge, but will begin shipping the liquors via truck by the beginning of April. The first 200 shipments are already scheduled — trucks will haul the liquors, about 2,500 gallons at a time up U.S. Highway 101 to Crescent City, along the twisting U.S. Highway 199 over the pristine Smith River to Grants Pass and up Interstate 5 to Longview.

"There's additional risk with trucks, especially that many," Crider said, but it has to be done. "We're just on borrowed time."

The hauling will be just another drop in the stream of around 2,000 trucks that come in and out of Humboldt County daily, Crider said. Whether logs, gasoline or pulping liquors, there's always potential for an accident. Crider said both the harbor district and the hauling company have insurance in case of a spill. Trucking the entire liquors supply to Longview will cost $1.6 million, Crider said.

Peering over the dock as a crew worked on oyster equipment below, Taylor Mariculture Operations Manager Mitch White said getting the liquors away from Humboldt Bay is crucial. The oyster company is investing millions of dollars into the dock and warehouse facilities at the pulp mill — investments that could be ruined by a leak. White's anxious for the cleanup. "The sooner the better — for everybody," he said.

If the tanks failed, the liquors would flow into the bay, Calanog explained, dramatically changing the pH and disrupting oyster production and the bay's fragile ecosystem. And the longer the liquors sit on the peninsula, the greater the risk. "There's no telling how long it would take the bay to recover," he said. "It would both be an environmental and economic disaster up there."

As Calanog knows, a spill could prove catastrophic for one of the area's emerging industries.

Though aquaculture remains a relatively small percentage of Humboldt County's recorded economy, the county listed "fisheries, processing and aquaculture" as one of its nine industries to promote as part of its prosperity strategy. A 2010 survey reported that Humboldt Bay shellfish production totaled $9.3 million in sales, half of the bay's total seafood value that year. Aquaculture made up 30 percent of the North Coast's total $31.4 million in seafood landings, according to the survey.

Although the March 9 earthquake, a strangely mild 6.8, caused no damage, it increased the harbor district's urgency, Crider said.

Perched above the pulp mill grounds, Crider points out that there's a lot of work still to be done. Once the liquors are shipped away, the EPA's superfund people will remove the sludge and solids and dismantle the liquors tanks. The Harbor District also secured EPA brownfield funding to clean up less hazardous materials around the mill.

After Evergreen Pulp's quick departure in 2009, the company sought to recoup costs by selling off valuable copper wire, piping, steel and other reusable materials that made up much of the water, sewer and electrical infrastructure of the mill. Still, valuable assets remain on the property, and Crider is confident they will attract businesses who will invest in and lease space from the district.

Looking west, Crider pointed to a mile-and-a-half pipeline into the Pacific, which could eventually discharge the entire peninsula's wastewater. Below the boiler building sits an electrical substation and the site's natural gas pipeline — two important incentives for businesses, Crider said.

To the east sit the mill's massive warehouse space, dozens of offices, the mill's operational generator and the dock. Still-functioning cranes dot the pulp mill's landscape. Taylor Mariculture has already built "flupsies," large nursery rafts used to culture oysters in the bay. The accessibility of the dock will make for convenient "show and tell" opportunities for Taylor and others in the oyster industry, Crider said.

Even the dormant giant under Crider's feet, the boiler that once cooked organics off of the liquors so they could be reused, may be valuable to the district. Crider said the agency is negotiating with a pulp mill in the Philippines to sell the boiler. He expects the district can get around $2 million for it, money that would be used to help pay for the cleanup.

Final plans for the pulp mill are evolving, and depend on the businesses that will eventually land there. Potential uses dreamed up by the district include export of lumber and other goods, aquaculture and research, food and industrial manufacturing and a public dock. Crider thinks the district will have enough interested businesses that the most difficult part will be deciding what kind of uses are best for the mill site — and Humboldt County.

For more than 40 years, the mill site has lurked as one of the area's most prominent landmarks. Crider visited Eureka as a fish buyer in the mid-'90s and distinctly remembers the odorous mill's effect on the city. Enamored with the area, he recalled thinking, "It really sucks about the pulp mill."

In the years to come, the boxy, sooty boiler building, one of the most recognizable parts of the Humboldt Bay skyline in combination with the 300-foot-tall crimson-topped smokestack, may be gone for good.

Pulp Mill Timeline

1964 — The pulp mill is built by Georgia-Pacific on the Samoa Peninsula.
1965 — The mill begins operation.
1989 — Environmental groups sue Louisiana-Pacific, which now runs the mill, and the Simpson Paper Company, which runs another mill nearby, alleging the mills are daily discharging tens of millions of gallons of untreated wastewater into the ocean. According to the suit, scientists found traces of a host of toxic chemical byproducts of the chlorine bleaching process, including dioxin and furan, in fish and crab samples from near the discharge sites.
1991 — The companies settle the suit, agreeing to pay a combined $5.8 million in penalties to the Environmental Protection Agency. Following the settlement, Simpson shutters its mill and Louisiana-Pacific converts its mill to a chlorine-free production process. In the ensuing years, Louisiana-Pacific sells the mill to a group of investors, which then re-sell the mill several times, with it ultimately landing in the hands of Stockton Pacific.
2005 — The Chinese-owned Lee and Man Paper Co. purchases the pulp mill under the name of a subsidiary, Evergreen Pulp.
2006 — Environmental groups again sue the mill's owners, this time alleging significant and ongoing violations of the mills federal air quality permit.
2007 — Evergreen settles the suit by agreeing to install a $1 million, state-of-the-art emissions control system.
2008 — Lee and Man Paper Co. sells Evergreen Pulp to a new investment group as the mill announces a temporary closure with plans to re-open in three to six months. During its ownership of the mill, Evergreen pours more than $40 million into improving the facility and remains profitable. However, in 2008, the pulp market goes into steep decline and Evergreen falls delinquent on its bills, with some suppliers and contractors acquiring court liens.
2009 — With Evergreen Pulp totally insolvent, Freshwater Pulp Co., led by Bob Simpson, purchases the mill with plans to get it up and running again.
2010 — Simpson announces he is unable to secure some $400 million in financing needed to re-open the mill and that it will be permanently closed.
2013 — The Humboldt County Harbor, Conservation and Recreation District acquires the mill site from Simpson at no cost, knowing there are some 4 million gallons of caustic pulping liquors on site that need to be removed. Within months, the district has the federal Environmental Protection Agency inspect the site and it is immediately federalized as the EPA initiates an emergency response to secure the pulping liquors and plan for their removal.
2014 — The EPA and the district plan to begin trucking the liquors off site beginning in late March.

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3/25/14


On Wednesday, Del Norte and Hum­boldt Counties will participate in a test of the tsunami communications system. Tests of the Emer­gency Alert System happen all the time, so what’s differ­ent about this test and why is it important?



Five tsunamis have caused damage on the North Coast in the past 150 years. All were caused by earthquakes far away from us. The worst were in 1964 when a magni­tude 9.2 earthquake struck Alaska and in 2011 by the magnitude 9 Japan earth­quake. Both of these earth­quakes sent their largest tsunami surges towards nearby coasts — the Kodiak Island and Prince William Sound region in 1964 and the Tohoku coast of Japan three years ago. But these earthquakes were so large and deformed such a large area of the sea floor that the wave energy sent outwards and away from the source region was still large enough to cause significant damage many thousands of miles away.



Residents of Alaska and Japan felt their respective earthquakes. The shaking lasted more than two min­utes and no one slept through them. They received the natural warning loud and clear, and if they lis­tened and took the right action, most had time to get to safety. Other areas of the Pacific, including Northern California, were too far away to feel the shaking. This is where the tsunami warning system comes into play.



Tsunami warning centers locate earthquakes anywhere that might pose a tsunami threat to U.S. coasts and ter­ritories. If it is large enough and located in an area where a damaging tsunami is pos­sible, alerts are disseminated through the Emergency Alert System. It’s a complex system — each event has a unique code, and the codes used for tests and real warn­ings are different. The stan­dard “test” messages don’t actually test all parts of the real alert system. The only way to make sure the warn­ing messages will work when we really need them is to test the real “live” mes­sages.



Past North Coast tsunami warning tests have paid divi­dends by revealing problems that were fixed afterwards.



In March of 2011, the sys­tem worked pretty well in distributing warnings of the tsunami coming from Japan. So why should we still test it? Systems and people change. We now have more sirens in North Coast com­munities. Humboldt County has updated its Reverse 911 calling system. In emergency management, systems must be tested repeatedly to make sure they work as intended.



There is a reason to be cautious about using the real warning codes because peo­ple may be confused and will respond as if a real tsunami is on the way. That’s where education and out­reach come in. Everyone needs to be aware that Wednesday’s test is just that — a test, and not a real tsunami. Please let your friends and neighbors know about the test, especially if they are unlikely to have heard about the test.



What will happen on Wednesday? Between 11 a.m. and noon, your radio or TV program may be interrupted with a message about the test. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration weather radios with the alert feature will automatically broadcast the alert message. In some coastal areas of Humboldt and Del Norte counties, you might hear an announce­ment from an airplane (sub­ject to weather conditions), receive a reverse 911 tele­phone message, or a siren being tested. Don’t be con­cerned if you don’t hear all of these different types of messages. The warning sys­tem is designed to be redun­dant and I hope everyone gets at least one notification. In Humboldt County, you don’t need to take any action, just note what you observed and go to the National Weather Service website at www.weather.gov/eureka or call 707-443-6484 to report how clear the message was and where you heard it.



Del Norte residents are being asked to participate in a full evacuation exercise during this test. If you live in the zone and the emergency alerts sound on the televi­sion, NOAA radio, public radio, tsunami siren or other means of notification, please walk out of the tsunami zone. Go on foot, you not to drive because this test is simulating a large earth­quake and driving will most likely not be possible. There will be numerous personnel stationed along the evacua­tion routes to assist you with directions.



Whether or not you are participating in a drill this Wednesday, use this as an opportunity to discuss earthquake and tsunami safety with your family, friends, and co-workers.



Check out the Living on Shaky Ground website at www.humboldt.edu/shaky­ground or request a copy of the magazine from HSU’s Geology Department at 826-3691. 



Lori Dengler is a professor in the Geology Department of Hum­boldt State University.

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3/19/14





The Pacific Gas and Electric Co. is giving the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Recreation and Conservation Dis­trict $2 million to buy a dredge, which Eureka Director of Public Works Bruce Young said will be more economically beneficial than continuing to contract one.



PG&E previously agreed to com­plete the dredging of the Fisherman’s Channel. Once dredged, its owner­ship would have been turned over to the district. PG&E spokeswoman Jana Morris said that while working on the project it became clear to those involved that the area would benefit from a more long-term solu­tion, versus repeatedly importing a dredge from out of the county. The company agreed to purchase the dredge in exchange for the district taking ownership of completing the channel dredging.



“The King Salmon residents were a great partner while the Humboldt Bay Power Plant, which is what the generating station was previously called, used the channel. The station no longer uses the channel,” Morris said.“The district owning a dredge is better for everyone in Humboldt County in general.”



Harbor District Chief Executive Officer Jack Crider said the district will own the dredge, but the city will use it, which will help offset the costs of operation and maintenance. Silt fills in places where vessels dock in the harbor, which makes them more shallow and unusable. Crider said dredging helps remove the buildup and was typically done every eight to 10 years in the area before the district was promised money to buy a dredge of its own.



“By having our own dredge, we’ll not only be able to take care of both marinas, but private dock owners will also be able to use it,” Crider said.“Right off the bat, buy­ing our own dredge eliminates the mobilization cost of bringing one here. Our average cost of dredging before was somewhere between $12 to $15 a cubic yard and we should be able to dredge for maybe half that price or better now. In 2007, it cost $3.2 million to dredge both the Eureka Public and Wood­ley Island Marinas and $600,000 of that cost went to importing the dredging equipment into the area.”



Crider said the district is trying to establish an annual dredge cycle. There’s already a dredge surcharge for those who keep their vessels at the Woodley Island Marina.

“The fees we collect every year should cover the cost of dredging and we hope Eureka begins to include a dredge surcharge fee for their vessels too,” Crider said. “Our goal is to be dredging a small volume, 30 to 50 yards, of sections that are shallow and causing problems every year, and over a 10 year period, we should all be in pretty good shape.”



Young said Eureka is very excited to have a new way to deal with the dredging issue that will have less of an overall cost.


“We’re thinking it will be a won­derful tool to have moving forward,” Young said.



PG&E will hold a community meeting to discuss the dredging of the Fisherman’s Channel today at the Humboldt Bay Generating Station Assembly Building. To get there, enter at the paved “Parking Lot B” entrance and take the first left into the parking lot.

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