In wake of spill, Domtar reviews public notification policy

BAILEYVILLE – In light of a Sept. 13 spill, Domtar Industries Inc. said Thursday it plans to review the way it notifies the public about problems at its Washington County pulp and paper mill.

More than 150,000 gallons of a so-called black liquor used in papermaking spilled into the St. Croix River, the ground or into the company’s wastewater treatment system. About 1,700 fish were killed.

While the mill immediately notified state authorities, it made no public announcement. It offered public details when the Bangor Daily News inquired about it this past Monday – 10 days after the spill.

The state Department of Environmental Protection wants to know more about damage from the spill, and Deputy Commissioner Brooke Barnes said Thursday the department also will review how the incident was communicated.

“Whenever there is a big spill, we like to make sure people know what’s going on,” Barnes said. “So as part of a postmortem of this spill and evaluation of what kind of enforcement action we might take, we will be looking at what went right and what went wrong.”

Montreal-based Domtar is taking steps to ensure that a spill of this magnitude does not occur again, said Debby Feck, manager of the Baileyville mill.

She said her staff also has been talking with corporate staff in Montreal about the communication issue. “We think it is an appropriate thing to do to be responsible citizens in the industry,” Feck said.

Domtar spokeswoman Gaile Nicholson said a new communication policy would be developed and reviewed at a corporatewide meeting in Montreal in November. “This is a positive step forward. We are reviewing our public notice procedures and modifying them in order to improve communication processes,” she said.

About 10:15 a.m. Sept. 13, a boiler operator discovered a leak of the black liquor in the mill’s pump house. Black liquor consists of water, sodium hydroxide, wood solids and wood extract used in the papermaking process.

At 10:34 a.m., the mill’s hazardous materials team and fire brigade were notified. At 11:18 a.m., the team tried to enter the pump house. But temperatures had reached 230 degrees F., and the pump house wasn’t deemed cool enough for the team to enter until 4:30 p.m.

While employees scrambled to contain the spill, others notified DEP. Later that day, community leaders in Baileyville, Calais and St. Stephen, New Brunswick, also were notified.

Domtar also notified the St. Croix Waterway Commission, which has international oversight of the river, along with others. The law requires that Domtar notify DEP, and state officials were on site that evening.

But some community leaders did not learn of the spill until days later.

Baileyville’s dispatchers were informed of the spill that Friday evening, but Baileyville Town Manager Jack Clukey said he did not hear about it until Sept. 20, when Nicholson told him.

Calais City Manager Linda Pagels said she learned of the spill when she got to work the next Monday, Sept. 16. Domtar officials had left a message on the city’s answering machine that said there had been a bypass and “it involved a small amount of a weak dark liquor” that got into the St. Croix River.

Pagels said Domtar never notified the city that more than 150,000 gallons of the material was unaccounted for.

Jay Beaudoin, the company’s environmental supervisor at the mill, said the company was reviewing its policy to include notifying community leaders directly and also informing them if there are any changes in the incident.

Feck on Thursday elaborated on what happened. “When this took place and [the black liquor] went down over an embankment into part of the plant … it spilled onto a cement floor,” she said. “Over time cement ages. There are support networks for the cement and [the black liquor] moved through those systems as best we understand. So now we are moving toward sealing the floors,” she said.

She said her staff also was examining every nook and cranny at the mill. “They are going through everything to find out where, anywhere on our property, if something seeps into the ground, it could get to the river,” she said.

The mill also is trying to find where all the black liquor went. Beaudoin said that under a worst-case scenario, “that entire volume went to the river.”

Next week, Beaudoin said, the company plans to drill to see if some of black liquor may have pooled in the bedrock below the surface.

Mill officials said Domtar would continue to monitor the river.