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Sierra Pacific Industries' Toxic Mill Discharge, background
December 2002
Background regarding Arcata Sierra Pacific Industry's toxic waste site:
See http://www.alternatives2toxics.org/SPI.htm for documents and links to information about the Arcata Sierra Pacific Mill, dioxin and pentachlorophenol.
Thirty-one Humboldt County health care providers have signed a letter urging outgoing District Attorney Terry Farmer to delay settlement of liability claims against Sierra Pacific Industries for toxic waste leaking into Humboldt Bay from its mill west of Arcata until health studies are completed by the California Department of Health Services.
From 1965 until 1984, the Sierra-Pacific Industries (SPI) sawmill near Arcata dipped lumber in pentachlorophenol, a wood preservative used to prevent deterioration by fungi and insects of milled lumber. The mill is located on the Samoa Peninsula due west of Arcata and directly adjacent to the Mad River Slough near its entry to the Humboldt Bay. In 1979, the North Coast Regional Water Quality Control Board (NCRWQCB) learned that pentachlorophenol was being discharged to soil on the site and into the nearby Slough and Bay. In 1982,NCRWQCB found pentachlorophenol in the tissue of aquatic organisms in the Slough. By 1984, pentachlorophenol use at the SPI mill was discontinued.
Though pentachlorophenol hasn't been used at the SPI mill for 18 years, the chemical and its toxic effects linger at the mill site and continue to discharge into the Mad River Slough and Humboldt Bay.
Pentachlorophenol and dioxins, unintentional contaminants of pentachlorophenol, are highly toxic chemicals that persist in the environment for many decades. Both chemicals cause cancer and other serious health problems. The dioxins present at the site are recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the World Health Organization as extremely toxic even in trace amounts. Dioxins bioaccumulate and biomagnify through the food chain by persisting for many years in fatty tissues and are endocrine disruptors which cause serious reproductive abnormalities in developing organisms, including humans.
A federal judge ruled in November that SPI has been in violation of the Clean Water Act since 1995 (the most distant date possible under the law) due to the discharge of pentachlorophenol and dioxin from its Arcata mill.
Until 2001, the NCRWQCB had not required that SPI conduct tests at and around the mill to learn the extent of the pentachlorophenol and dioxin pollution nor had corresponding studies for health and ecological risk been undertaken.
Studies conducted by a public interest organization discovered elevated levels of dioxin in Mad River Slough sediments at SPI's drainage ditches and in Humboldt Bay shellfish raising serious concerns for those who eat shellfish from Humboldt Bay.
Initial results from tests taken on the site by NCRWQCB and SPI indicate an extensive plume of toxic chemicals has spread out and down from the original areas where the chemicals. How far down the chemicals have spread is not yet known. Sediment samples indicate continuing presence of the chemicals. The most recent samples have shown dioxin where sediment discharges from the mill site. Tests designed to establish the extent and transport paths of dioxins -- and amounts present in seafood taken from the Bay -- have only recently begun.
The legal action proposed by NCRWQCB involves decisions about the extent of the cleanup activities that would be required in order to abate the pollution and return it to a condition that would no longer negatively impact human health and the local environment, decisions that cannot logically be made until information needed to make appropriate decisions is available. This information is not yet available.
the California Department of Health Services and the Office of Environmental Health Hazards Assessment have begun the process of evaluating the human health risks associated with dioxins and the results of the preliminary evaluation are expected to be released in February 2003. Sierra-Pacific Industries is currently under a Board order to conduct sediment and other environmental studies that will reveal the extent of the pollution and to complete human and ecological risk assessments. Furthermore, the Department of Fish and Game has indicated that there is evidence that tests need to be undertaken to determine if other highly toxic chemicals such as PCBs (highly toxic and persistent polychlorinated biphenyls) are present at the SPI mill and discharging into the Mad River Sough and the Humboldt Bay.
