As Georgia-Pacific continues to fight environmental groups and the state Department of Environmental Protection over the waste that it dumps into Florida’s rivers and streams, the paper company may be headed for similarly-heated battles elsewhere.

Georgia-Pacific makes Dixie cups, Brawny paper towels and Angel Soft toilet paper, among other paper products, and is a division of Koch Industries. The company is also one of the companies responsible for polluting a Superfund site on the Kalamazoo River with PCBs.

The Ouachita Riverkeeper, which strives to maintain the quality of the Ouachita River as it snakes through Arkansas and Louisiana, has alleged that Georgia-Pacific is destroying the Ouachita ecosystem by flooding the river with waste in violation of regulations that have already come under attack in the past for being too lax.

In a YouTube video, Ouachita Riverkeeper Cheryl Slavant (the term “Riverkeeper” refers to both the organization and Slavant as the person who oversees and represents the organization’s efforts) details the violations that she says are ongoing at Georgia-Pacific’s Crossett, Ark., plant.

Slavant tells The American Independent that although Georgia-Pacific’s daily allowance of wastewater is officially listed as 45 million gallons, she got the figure of 85 million from attending an Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) hearing. ADEQ spokesperson Cecillea Pond-Mayo says that the permit is, in fact, for the lower number of 45 million. Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), a national environmental oversight organization, also uses the 45 million gallon figure. Slavant, however, still isn’t convinced that Georgia-Pacific isn’t dumping far more waste into the Ouachita River than it’s supposed to. “I’ve been monitoring that site for several years and there’s more water coming from that discharge point now than there ever was,” she says. “It’s a gushing waterfall instead of a trickle.”

One of the main effluents from the plant is “black liquor,” a resinous byproduct of paper production. Black liquor can actually be used for a fuel source as an alternative to coal and natural gas, but not all paper plants have installed the costly equipment to turn black liquor into fuel. Slavant contends that Georgia-Pacific has been dumping it into the water rather than treating it.

Spokespersons for Georgia-Pacific could not be reached for comment on whether the Crossett plant uses the “gasification” process employed to make usable fuel out of black liquor.

Georgia-Pacific has been meeting its permit, according to ADEQ reviews of the site, reports Pond-Mayo. Pond-Mayo also tells The American Independent that the site most prominently featured in the Riverkeeper video is part of Georgia-Pacific’s wastewater treatment plant and says that the water that actually enters the Ouachita River via tributary Coffee Creek is far cleaner.

Slavant remains skeptical. She and PEER have now filed a complaint with the EPA to have the agency review the site for potential violations. In 2007, the EPA found that the “no aquatic life use” designation of Coffee Creek that allows Georgia-Pacific to dump more wastewater into Coffee Creek than it could dump directly into the Ouachita River was questionable. The EPA determined that if companies like Georgia-Pacific were barred from dumping waste and chemicals into the water, Coffee Creek could support aquatic life. The EPA recommended that the creek be reclassified by the ADEQ, but it could not enforce its recommendation with regulation.

Pond-Mayo says that the ADEQ is currently developing a usability analysis to evaluate the EPA claims and potentially appeal the recommendation.

The former Pickens Plating site was abandoned after the company declared bankruptcy in 2009, leaving behind approximately 100,000 gallons of toxic acids and chemicals.

Superfund status makes federal dollars available for testing and cleanup. The original source of the PCBs here have never been found and that will likely be the first priority for the EPA in seeking to fix the problem.

Ed Van Hees, assistant professor of geology, said his samples taken in February, late March and early April found PCB levels ranging from 126 parts per million (ppm), to 700 ppm. That’s well below the 825,000 ppm the Environmental Protection Agency found in November, but well above the danger range. Federal guidelines consider findings of 50 ppm to designate an area a hazardous-waste site.

PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, are industrial compounds banned in the 1970s after they were found to cause cancer.

A $10-million cleanup in 2001 brought PCB levels down to what the EPA considered a safe level of 10 ppm. The new findings mean that the earlier cleanup is negated because the pollutants are still leaking into the canals.

In March the EPA recommended that the area around the St. Clair Shores 10 mile drain be declared a Superfund site. If approved, this designation could mean more funds for cleanup.

The source of the ongoing contamination of the canals has not yet been identified.

In a letter to DOJ Assistant Attorney General Moreno, Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) and Rep. Fred Upton (R-St. Joseph) said that they are worried that a proposed $162 million dollar settlement between DOJ and Lyondell falls short of what is needed to remove PCBs from the Kalamazoo Superfund site.

… the settlement allocates only $103 million for LyondellBasell’s share of the cleanup of the Kalamazoo River Superfund site; a sum the company estimated in court documents to be as high as $2.5 billion. While we understand that bankruptcy proceedings often leave creditors with a fraction of what they are owed by the debtor, we find it unacceptable that a company that will emerge from bankruptcy as a profitable entity can only pay pennies on the dollar of its obligation to clean up the Kalamazoo site. In addition to the statutory creditors standard to a bankruptcy proceeding, an environmental cleanup project also encompasses thousands of individuals and families that, although not direct parties to this proceeding, are truly creditors in every sense of the word as their health and quality of life depends on this cleanup.

The lawmakers noted that the Kalamazoo River Superfund site is one of the largest Superfund sites in the country and that it is reported to be a major contributor of PCBs to Lake Michigan. They asked DOJ to justify its proposed deal with Lyondell and to extend the comment period on the proposed settlement.

According to Bloomberg News, when a company that has caused environmental damage enters bankruptcy, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency generally collects only about 23 percent of what the company owes for environmental cleanup.

The PCB (polychlorinated biphenyl) contamination of the Kalamazoo River stretches from east of Kalamazoo to Lake Michigan and was listed as a Superfund site since 1990.

Last year Killian reported that cleanup work on the river had slowed because the U.S. arm of LyondellBasell Industries had filed for bankruptcy and objected to paying for environmental cleanup while in bankruptcy.

LyondellBasell — also known as Millennium Holdings LLC — had been financing the Kalamazoo River cleanup along with the paper company Georgia-Pacific Corp., the other party identified as responsible for the contamination.

In his story today Killian writes that the LyondellBasell’s offer of $250 million falls far short of what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says is required.

The government had sought up to $5 billion from the company for cleanup work at sites where LyondellBasell has some responsibility, according to court documents filed in the U.S. District Court’s Southern District of New York. In court documents filed in December, the company said the Kalamazoo River project — its largest environmental cleanup liability — would cost up to $2.5 billion.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are a class of toxic compounds that were used in manufacturing but banned in the U.S. in the 1970s. Exposure to PCBs has been linked to a broad range of health problems including reproductive and immune system damage and cancer.

Over the last seven years federal, state and local officials have spent $10 million on efforts to clean up PCBs in the canals and groundwater in St. Clair Shores.

Samples of underground oil taken from two sites near the Bon Brae/Harper intersection showed PCB readings of 98,000 parts per million and 820,000 parts per million. One part per million is considered safe for human health by state standards.

“The numbers surprised our consultants. They surprised officials at the city of St. Clair Shores and they surprised us,” said William Misterovich, deputy Macomb County public works commissioner.

“The numbers are just astronomical. I believe they are the highest we’ve ever tested out there.”

The source of the PCB contamination has not been identified.

The 10th St. canal in St. Clair Shores was among three sites that Governor Jennifer Granholm asked the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to include on its National Priorities or Superfund List. Federal funds can be used to clean up contaminated areas that are designated as Superfund sites.

The St. Louis site is among three contaminated areas that Gov. Jennifer Granholm recently asked EPA to add to the National Priorities List.

According to EPA:

The proposed Superfund site lies east of the Hidden Oaks Golf Course on Monroe Road. From 1956 to 1970, the nearby Velsicol Chemical plant disposed of liquid industrial waste by open pit burning in this area. The disposal area was proposed to the NPL in 1982 and at that time Velsicol excavated 68,000 cubic yards of contaminated soil. As a result, the proposed NPL listing was cancelled. In 2006, additional soil and ground water contamination was found and EPA and Michigan Department of Environmental Quality decided to propose the site as a new listing.

If added to the NPL, the site will be eligible for further analysis and development of cleanup options by EPA in partnership with MDEQ. Private residential or municipal drinking water wells are not believed to be affected. Addressing the site under Superfund can remove potential future risks.

The sites in question are the Du-Well Hartford site in Van Buren County, a former plating company where solvents have leached in the soil and groundwater; the St. Clair Shores drain site in Macomb County where polychlorinated biphenyl contamination is migrating into Lake St. Clair; and the Vesicol Burn Pit site in Gratiot County where contamination from a chemical incineration pit has polluted the soil and threatens environmental resources along the Pine River.

In a July 1 letter to EPA Region 5 Director Bharat Mathur, Granholm said that these sites pose a “significant threat to public health and the environment” and that placing them on the NPL is “the most viable alternative for addressing the necessary long-term response actions.”

Earlier this year Granholm chose not to seek Superfund status for Michigan’s largest toxic site, the dioxin-contaminated Saginaw River watershed.

EPA spokesman Mick Hans said the agency is expected to update its Superfund list within the month.

When EPA lists a site on the National Priorities List, federal funds are made available for cleanup.

For decades, state and federal environmental agencies have been negotiating with Midland-based Dow Chemical (NYSE:DOW) over how to address a 50-mile long stretch of dioxin contamination in the state’s largest watershed. In 2003, Michigan officials and Dow agreed on a framework for investigating and cleaning up the pollution but the state government has lacked the resources and political will to enforce its agreement with Dow, one of the world’s largest chemical corporations.

On May 26, the EPA announced that it would take on primary responsibility for overseeing investigation and cleanup of the Saginaw River and Saginaw Bay portions of the contaminated zone. The agency promised its handling of the contamination would involve an unprecedented level of transparency and announced the formation of a new office in the Saginaw area.

Wednesday evening, officials from EPA headquarters in Washington, D.C., are expected to spell out how they will proceed. Although no formal agenda has been set for the meeting, these are some of the issues that are expected to surface:

Clarification of roles for state and federal agencies: The EPA has taken over responsibility for a portion of the zone, but has not designated it a Superfund site. Critics and EPA insiders have warned that sites that are handled outside the Superfund process are subject to less strict regulatory oversight.

One of the reasons that the EPA and state of Michigan have split oversight responsibility is that the state has had a hard time compelling cooperation from Dow. Will the EPA still back up the state if it is unable to compel the company to cooperate with cleanup in Midland and around the Tittabawassee River where it remains the primary regulatory authority?

Timeline: Sampling has been underway for decades but so far only limited emergency cleanups have been conducted at pollution “hot spots.” When will comprehensive clean up begin?

Dioxin reassessment: As part of the announcement of new strategy on Michigan’s dioxin contamination, EPA announced that it expected to release it’s long delayed dioxin assessment by the end of next year. Lack of clear information about the health risks posed by the chemical has slowed efforts to achieve cleanup. At Wednesday evening’s presentation, some expect an update on efforts to establish human health parameters for dioxin and discussion of the standards that the agency will use in Michigan while it awaits the finalized dioxin assessment.

Currently dioxin contamination at levels of 1,000 parts per trillion require clean-up under federal law. The state of Michigan’s clean up level is 90 ppt. Some locals are concerned that federal handling of the dioxin problem could mean that a lower standard of cleanup is required.

Risk reduction and help for people in contaminated homes: Hundreds of homes in the floodplain of the Tittabawassee River have become contaminated with dioxin from operations at Dow. Many of these residents would like to be able to move and want to know whether EPA will be offer relocation assistance.

Environmental groups the Lone Tree Council and the Ecology have asked EPA to take immediate action to communicate the risks of fish and game consumption and contact with dioxin contaminated soils.

Locals have also asked EPA to monitor of the effects of a U.S. Army Crops of Engineers dredging project on the Saginaw River on areas downstream and especially the municipal water systems of Bay City, Saginaw and Midland, which get their water from Saginaw Bay.

The meeting will be held at 6:30 p.m. at Saginaw Valley State Univeristy‘s Curtiss Hall in banquet rooms A and B.