BUCKSPORT – An innovative program at the Verso Paper mill during the past few years has provided significant environmental benefits to the region and, at the same time, given the company a substantial financial boost.

The Bucksport Environmental Innovative Partnership, or BEIP, program has included mill employees, state and federal regulators, national park officials, university researchers, local environmental advocates and municipal officials in an effort that has cut air emissions, eased the mill’s impact on soil and water resources, and at the same time achieved significant, ongoing savings for the mill.

“This was a comprehensive look at the environmental footprint of that facility,” said Marc Cone, a senior environmental engineer with the state Department of Environmental Protection’s Air Quality Bureau. “I think anyone who has been involved with it will say that it has been quite successful.”

Since the mid-1990s, despite three different owners, the mill has reduced air emissions significantly, cutting “total criteria pollutant” emissions by about 85 percent. Total criteria pollutants are those emissions that are or could be harmful to people: carbon monoxide, lead, ozone, particulate matter and sulfur dioxide.

Between 1994 and 2006, the mill reduced total criteria pollutants from about 8,000 tons to about 1,100 tons per year, according to Kenneth Gallant, Verso’s manager for environmental performance. The most significant reduction of emissions came after the mill built a gas-fired turbine, which went on line in December 2000. The addition of natural gas as a fuel reduced emissions from 4,500 tons per year to 2,000 tons per year.

But the turbine project brought with it a challenge for the mill and a potential clash with state environmental officials. Although the use of natural gas already had reduced nitrogen oxides, or NOX, emissions by about 70 percent, according to Verso spokesman Bill Cohen, state licensing requirements stipulated the addition of selective catalytic reduction, or SCR, technology to further reduce NOX emissions. That would have cost the mill an additional $3 million to $4.5 million and required it to use ammonia in the process, which has its own emissions issues.

“We got rid of [ammonia] in 1996 and we did not want it back in the mill,” Cohen said.

With some flexibility in the mill’s license, the department and the mill were able to develop a process that drew on outside experts and local residents to review mill operations and look at the facility’s entire environmental footprint, including the water environment, air emissions and solid waste. The department suggested that the mill allocate $3 million, the approximate cost of the SCR technology, for projects that would benefit the environment and provide a return to the mill on its investment.

Verso officials credit DEP staff members for their willingness to provide the mill with some flexibility in dealing with the emissions.

“The environmental regulations were very proscriptive,” Cohen said. “Instead of a standard command and control mode, they [DEP] were willing to look at some things differently and to think outside the box.”

The BEIP program brought together a group of about 30 people from different agencies, organizations and the community who reviewed more than 30 projects before tapping eight of them to be implemented. The mill agreed to allocate the $3 million in capital funds for those projects.

The process was a very positive one, said BEIP member Pam Person, chairwoman of the Bucksport Bay Area Healthy Communities Coalition’s Environment and Energy Committee and a longtime advocate for clean air and clean energy.

“It was a bottom-up process that allowed the committee members to discuss projects openly and to develop a trust and respect for the knowledge each of us brought to the table,” Person said. “It was a very positive thing. The more people that use this approach, the more success they’re going to have.”

The analysis of the projects was rigorous and took into consideration not only environmental benefits and mill finances, but local concerns as well, according to Town Manager Roger Raymond.

“There were a lot of watchdogs in there; this was not just a way to take a shortcut around regulations,” Raymond said. “It was a good process, and it was good for everybody. It resulted in more benefits environmentally than they were being asked for. We gained environmentally as a community, and the mill gained financially.”

Overall, the mill’s $3 million capital allocation for the projects has grown to more than $4.8 million, of which $3.4 million already has been spent. The projects have reduced NOX emissions and also have reduced emissions of sulfur dioxide, which the SCR technology would not have done. Projects still in progress are expected to reduce water usage at the mill by more than 2 million gallons per day and to reduce the amount of sludge going to the mill’s landfill beyond federal expectations.

Those eight projects are expected to result in a total of $1.3 million in operational savings annually, a significant benefit given the competitive market for coated papers.

Mill officials are pleased with the progress that has resulted from the BEIP process and plan to implement it in the company’s other three mills.

“It has been very rewarding,” Gallant said. “Personally, it has been the most rewarding experience I’ve had.”

The mill continues to look for ways to cut emissions, and will continue to work with regulators and local representatives. Potential projects could include developing new lines of lighter-weight coated paper, which would reduce costs, emissions and the use of natural resources. The challenge there will be more of a marketing challenge as Verso works to persuade customers to buy the lighter paper.