by Michael Kelly

In an effort to discover first-hand
how accurate the claims of Orenda
Forest Products are with regard to
the technology of the pulp and
paper mill they are proposing to
build near Lakelse Lake, a group
of civic officials took a trip to
northern Minnesota last week to
look at two groundwood mills
designed by the same company
that will engineer the Orenda mill.

The group was comprised of
Terrace mayor Jack Talstra, alder-

man Rick King, regional district.

director Sandy Sandhals, economic
development officer Peter
Monteith, Tourism and Economic
Advisory Commission members
Dave McKeown, Wilfrid Mc-
Kenzie and Don Eastman, and
John Evans from the Chamber of
Commerce.

At least two of them could find
little to fault in the mills at Duluth
and nearby Grand Rapids.

Lake Superior Paper Industries
produces 160,000 tons per year of
Super Calendared "A" paper from
a groundwood mill designed by
Tampella Paper Machinery of
Finland and built in a Duluth sub-
urb in 1987, Terrace mayor Jack
Talstra said in an interview Satur-
day that the entire milling oper-
ation with the exception of the log
yard is completely enclosed in a
building slightly larger than the
Skeena Cellulose sawmill in Ter-
race and not unlike that building in
appearance. It is built in the centre
of a residential neighbourhood on
the Lake Superior waterfront,
across the street from a department
store, Talstra said he and some of
the rest of the travelling group
went on a door-knocking tour of

the area and found the residents
generally happy with the mill’s
unintrusive performance. He said
the group was especially struck by
the general cleanliness and moder-
nity of the mill.

The LSP mill uses a softwood
furnish of spruce and fir. Like the
Orenda mill, it produces pulp from
grinding the wood and laying it
over a mat of kraft pulp purchased
from another plant. Unlike Orenda,
however, it does not have an evap-
orator and condensation system
that contains the liquid effluent.
Most of the steam is sent to a
neighbouring electrical generating
plant; remaining liquids are dis-
charged into the Western Lake
Superior Sanitary: District system
afier being treated in lhe plant by
a primary clarifier.

Kurt Soderberg is the executive
director of the sanitary district. He
describes the LSP plant’s environ-
mental record as “excellent”. The
mill, he said, was sought out by
the city in the search for “an ideal
corporate citizen" to revitalize the
economy of a run-down area of
Duluth.

"I can’t give a testimonial, except
jo say that they have done what
they said they would do," Soder-
berg said. The plant emits a stable
liquid discharge, and Soderberg
said the only concern he would
have with a new mill would be

higher discharge loads than
expected during start-up. The
sludge that comes out of the efflu-
ent treatment is incinerated, he
said, and the ash meets chemical
tests to qualify for landfilling.

The sanitary district processes 34

million gallons of liquid waste
daily, with two bleached kraft pulp
mills in the system. Soderberg
remarked that while the Terrace
group was in town Greenpeace
mounted demonstrations against
one of the kraft mills but ignored
the LSP operation. Talstra’ also
noted the demonstrations, adding
that he had been told Tampella had
asked at one time for an endorse-
ment from Greenpeace, which they
declined to extend. He mused that
perhaps being ignored by Green-
peace could constitute a type of
endorsement.

In the vicinity of the LSP plant,
he said, there was virtually no
noise and no detectable odour. The

plant uses sodium hydrosulfite as a

brightening agent, rather than

-hydrogen peroxide as planned for

the Orenda mill.

ONE-INDUSTRY TOWN
The Blandin Paper Company is
the only major industrial operation

_in Grand Rapids, Minn., population

about 10,000. Terrace representa-
tives visited Grand Rapids, about
150 kilometres from Duluth during
the junket. On the Duluth trip the
group was accompanied. by two
representatives from Orenda and
three from Tampella, but on the
Blandin tour they were absent.

Blandin, Talstra explained, views
Orenda as a potential competitor in
the coated paper market and would
not allow officials from that com-
pany into the plant.

The company has been in Blan-
din since the 1930's, but the Tam-
pella groundwood mill was built
only two years ago. It uses a mix-
ture of 60 percent aspen hardwood
and 40 percent spruce softwood to
produce 200,000 tons of light
weight coated magazine paper a
year, Talstra said it is a large oper-
ation, employing about 1,200
people. “We talked to the resi-
dents, there appeared to be no
problems... It’s really right in
town," he said.

A reporter for the Grand Rapids
Herald-Review said, "They’re well
accepted; they pour a lot of money
into town. They’re fairly decent
but nobody tells us anything about
what’s in the emissions or effluent.
Very hush-hush."

Blandin also operates a bleached

‘kraft paper mill in Grand Rapids.

Steve Lepala, director of water
quality control for the Northern
Minnesota Pollution Control Au-
thority, said the effluent from both
mills is processed by the municipal
water treatment plant. The plant
treats about 12 million gallons of
sewage daily, all but one million
of which comes from Blandin
operations.

A represcniative of the local
treatment facility, when asked
about the environmental track
record of the groundwood plant,
gave the Terrace: Review a name (0

contact at a telephone number that -
turned out to be the Blandin Paper
Company switchboard.

THE OTHERS

Six mills designed by Tampella
have been built in North America
over the past decade, of which the
Duluth and Grand Rapids mills are
two, The others are St. Mary’s
Paper in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont.,
Madison Paper in Madison, Maine,
Niagara of Wisconsin in the city
and state of that name, and the
James River Corporation of St.
Francisville, Louisiana.

The Niagara mill uses hardwood
furnish and the James River mill is
an integral part of a bleached kraft
operation, making comparisons
with Orenda difficult.

A correspondent for the Stow-
hegan Morning Sentinel, the news-
paper serving Madison, Maine,
said the groundwood mill modifi-

cation to the existing Madison

Paper operation has improved the
company’s performance on envi-
ronmental issues. The problem, in
fact, he said, is not with the plant
but with the sanitary district sys-
tem into which it discharges. The
system is apparently below the
capacity required.

Clippings from the Sault Ste.
Marie Star indicate that St. Mary’s
Paper has been in trouble with
environmental officials period-

-ically, due to.excessive amounts of

particulate solids in the plant efflu-
ent rather than discharge of dan-
gerous chemicals.

Terrace Review —— Wednesday, September 4, 1991 A5

Hard to find fault with groundwood pulp
mills, local ambassadors to Duluth say

Both Madison and St. Mary’s
had the groundwood installations
done as additions to an existing

bleached kraft mill.

‘THE COMPARISONS

_ All six mills use processes for

turning logs into pulp and paper
that are fundamentally similar to
the process Orenda would use in
its mill. There are important differ-
ences, however. The systems that
would go into the Lakelse mill
have all been proven individually,
but they have never all been used
in one plant before.

Gordon Mitchell, vice president
of Tampella’ North American
operations in Atlanta, Georgia,

calls the Minnesota groundwood -

operations "very comparable” to
Orenda’s proposal. Climate, log
haulage and the nature of the wood
are similar, and all three plants
will use a pressurized groundwood
system, drum de-barking and a
comparable level of automation.

The Orenda mill will exhibit
some technological improvements,
Mitchell said, like combining the
paper-making into a single oper-
ation instead of the three-stage
operation used in Blandin. The
significant difference, he said, will
be in the effluent: Orenda proposes
to contain all liquid except vented
steam within the plant through the

-use-of evaporators and condensers.

These are mechanisms that are
used in all kraft mills, although not
in the same sort of comprehensive

system Orenda visualizes, Mitchell
said.
"There is nothing in this mill that

hasn’t been proven," Mitchell .

concluded.

Dan Eastman -was one of ‘the
Terrace contingent that visited
Minnesota, going as a member of
TEAC. Eastman is a steam engin-
eer at Eurocan Pulp and Paper,

with 20 years of experience work- |

ing in pulp mills. He got a close-
up look at both LSP and Blandin.
"I was extremely impressed. It’s
a real step forward, much cleaner
than the kraft process," Eastman
said. When asked if what Orenda
is proposing can work the way
they say it will, Eastman replied,
"It’s feasible technology. Yes,
there’s no doubt it can be done."
At the time of the interview,
Eastman had examined the newly-
issued Orenda prospectus for three
hours. "It looks pretty good," he
concluded. "It’ll probably work."
Eastman added that in dis-
cussions with LSP officials he
discovered that the Duluth mill had
expected a $16 million loss in the
first year, having accounted for
start-up glitches, but instead turned
a $3 million profit. "It looks very

good to me,” Eastman commented.

The Terrace representatives on
the Minnesota trip will file a report
with Terrace city council at coun-
cil’s regular monthly meeting Sept.
9.

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