Koochiching looking for answers on lagoon odour

FORT FRANCES—Koochiching County commissioners have invited parties on both sides of the border to get to the bottom of the stench allegedly wafting into Minnesota from Fort Frances.
“It’s been an ongoing issue for the past five years,” said commissioner Wade Pavleck. “It’s generated so many [complaints] that two years ago, I contacted the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency.
“They pointed the finger at Abitibi, and kind of gave me the turnaround and said they’d been in contact and working on it.
“But here we are two years, nothing’s been done,” he added. “So I finally brought it to the board here.”
At their meeting last week, Pavleck said county commissioners instructed the Koochiching County Environmental Services Department to contact representatives from Abitibi-Consolidated, Boise Cascade LLC, the MPCA, the Ministry of Environment, and the Minnesota Department of Public Health to get together.
“I’m a little cautious,” Pavleck admitted. “The MPCA is pointing the finger at Abitibi, but I want to get all the parties together and confirm a few things.
“First, we want to confirm the source of the odour. Is it Abitibi? If it is, great, then we’ll go from there,” Pavleck added.
“What’s the substance? What is that odour? This is an odour that wasn’t there years gone by. It’s so much stronger and noxious.
“Third, we want to know what the health effects are. We want a straight answer on that,” he stressed. “The MPCA is saying they don’t believe there are long-term health effects. Well, that makes me nervous.
“And lastly, we want to know what’s the solution and what’s the timelines that go along with that,” Pavleck continued. “We want to see an end to this and how we’re going to get there.”
Pavleck said it “just makes sense” to get the parties together at the same time.
“If it isn’t Abitibi, I want them to have the opportunity to say that,” he remarked. “I think the only way we can resolve this is to get everybody together.
“No industry has the right to foul their neighbour with foul air.”
Pavleck said he’s also had complaints from Ranier residents about foam on the water near the rail bridge and will inquire about that.
As reported in Friday’s Daily Bulletin, Abitibi is working with the MoE to devise a timeline to at least mitigate the smelly problem from the north-end lagoon.
“Changes internally have caused more sulphur to get to our treatment system, resulting in more hydrogen sulphide being formed,” Gary Rogozinski, environmental services manager at the mill, noted last Thursday.
“Even very low levels of that particular substance, well, you notice it.
“We’ve got a five-year plan—we’ve already started some chemical trials in the mill, not the treatment system, to try and get rid of that odour,” added Rogozinski.
“But because the system’s so big, it’s a really, really difficult task to try and eliminate odour in something that’s 200 million gallons in size.
“We know there’s an odour. But we’re not the only source of odour in the community.” he stressed. “On a south wind, all you have to do is stand across from the I. Falls mill and realize that they contribute to the odour in the community, as well.
“But on a north wind, you can definitely smell our treatment system, and we’re taking significant steps to improve it.”
Rogozinski said it’s definitely the lagoon—not the mill itself—creating the stink.
“In 1999-2000, we spent over $9 million to reduce odour coming from our pulp mill and it was really successful. We saw a big reduction in odour from our kraft mill,” he noted.
“But now the problem has shifted to our treatment system. Now it’s basically round two, back to the drawing board,” he explained.
“We’ve got both the Pulp and Paper Research Institute of Canada helping us and the National Council for Air and Stream Improvement helping us,” Rogozinski continued.
“They’re scientific-based groups and they’re both helping us in trying to not only pinpoint where exact problems are, but helping us come up with potential solutions for it.
“We’ve entered into an agreement with the ministry, where we’ve submitted a plan and they’re putting it into what they call a director’s order. That order will have timelines and dates to complete projects,” he explained.
“The process will be finalized [this] week and we’ll look at releasing more information to the public.”
(Fort Frances Times)