Company official says numbers intentionally padded
A press release this month by nonprofit group Environment Minnesota listed International Falls’ Boise White Paper, now Boise Inc., as one of the three largest polluters of the state’s water.
The company reported 26,257 pounds of chemicals being discharged into the surface water and a total of 289,280 pounds of chemicals being released into the air and water combined.
Environment Minnesota used company-reported data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Toxic Release Inventory for 2007 to generate its report. Boise ranked third in the state for chemicals released into the water, following 3M and Flint Hill Resources in the Twin Cities, according to Environment Minnesota’s findings.
Boise Public Affairs Manager Bob Anderson said the company intentionally pads the numbers to ensure it remains within federal guidelines.
“We can’t find we’re putting anything into the Rainy River,” said Anderson, noting that the EPA had “no problem with our effluent ... The effluent meets or is under (federal guidelines) for drinking water standards.”
Anderson said that while independent labs which perform effluent testing for Boise have found no detection of the harmful chemicals, the company chooses to err on the side of caution when reporting releases to the EPA.
“We do not want to be in a position where we under-report,” explained Anderson. “If there was a public health issue, the EPA would be taking action with our permits,” he said.
And even with what Anderson described as over-reported numbers given to the EPA, he said that the numbers are within acceptable levels allowed for the facility by federal guidelines.
The Clean Water Act, enacted in 1972, “employs a variety of regulatory and nonregulatory tools to sharply reduce direct pollutant discharges into waterways, finance municipal wastewater treatment facilities, and manage polluted runoff,” according to the EPA Web site. The Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act of 1986 requires the EPA and the states to annually collect data on releases and transfers of certain toxic chemicals from industrial facilities, and make the data available to the public in the Toxics Release Inventory.
Environment Minnesota analyzed this TRI data for its October 2009 “Wasting Our Waterways: Toxic Industrial Pollution and the Unfulfilled Promise of the Clean Water Act” report and an accompanying news release entitled “Over 230 Million Pounds of Toxics Discharged Into American Waterways.” Environment Minnesota reported that industrial facilities statewide dumped more than 230 million pounds of toxic chemicals into Minnesota’s waterways.
“With facilities dumping so much pollution, no one should be surprised that nearly half of our waterways are unsafe for swimming and fishing. But we should be outraged,” the press release opined.
According to the EPA Web site Toxic Release Inventory, Boise reported releases of 520 pounds of acetaldehyde, 2,000 pounds of formic acid, 37 pounds of lead compounds, 20,000 pounds of manganese compounds, and 3,700 pounds of zinc compounds into the Rainy River in 2007. The Environment Minnesota press release noted that 557 pounds of the chemicals, acetaldehyde and lead compounds, are linked to cancer.
“The fact that many industrial facilities are exploiting the system and using the nation’s waterways as toxic dumping grounds is nothing less than a public health crisis,” U.S. Rep. Jim Oberstar was quoted as saying by Environment Minnesota in the Oct. 21 press release. Oberstar, the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee chairman, told the group that the committee held a hearing in October to examine the progress, or setbacks, seen with the Clean Water Act and found “very frightening, tangible impacts on human health and the environment that occur when toxic substances enter our waters.”
But Anderson said that Boise has been part of the solution, not part of the problem, in recent years in regard to working with other local parties to clean the water and ensure that pollutants are not affecting Rainy River.
Paper mills on both sides of the Rainy River, Boise and Abitibi-Bowater, have taken care over the last several decades with what is being put into the water, Anderson said, adding that Boise is following federal mandates on the chemical content of its effluent into the river.
“The two cities, International Falls and Fort Frances, and the two mills have both done outstanding work to make the Rainy River the success it is today,” Anderson said. “We all want to protect the environment that we have here.”
