Monday public hearing at Eureka
City Hall may force monitoring
By Charles Douglas
HUMBOLDT SENTINEL
|  EUREKA
- Months of public debates, vociferous protests and
competing letters to the editor on the operation of
the Samoa Pulp Mill by Evergreen, Inc. may all come
down to a Monday morning meeting of the Hearing Board
for the North Coast Unified Air Quality Management District.
The hearing is scheduled to address variances
allowing pollution in excess of levels established by
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as well as
to determine the validity of an abatement order issued
by Lawrence Odle, the local Air Resources Control Officer. |
Yet even as press deadline approached, a spokesperson for
Evergreen suggested a pre-arranged deal with District officials
to further put off any decisions until next year, which would
allow the pulp mill to continue operations which activists
contend are harmful to local health and safety.
“The hearing has been postponed from Monday, we are
waiting to find out the final time frame, which we believe
will be in January…it will be a formality and a procedural
delay,” Evergreen employee Ed Crawford said. “It’s
not been done at our request because we’re ready to
install the equipment and have been for some time. We still
don’t understand what the problem is, we’ve been
waiting for someone to say go do it.”
Crawford said the funds had been set aside and the engineering
plans had been completed, leaving only an order as yet not
issued by Odle. Representatives of the Citizen’s Pulp
Mill Committee, by comparison, were troubled by the repeated
delays in the hearing process.
 “I’m
quite surprised to hear they don’t think anything of
significance will be happening on Monday,” CPMC organizer
Elizabeth Eytchson said. “It seems to me they’re
trying to win with a public relations battle. I’d be
much more comfortable if they’d honestly deal with their
problems…they’re trying to put themselves forward
as a victim of harassment by protestors concerned about the
clean air.”
Eytchson referred to a television ad played often by local
broadcasters which defends the pulp mill’s place in
the community, an commercial also criticized by Eureka Greens
member Xandra Manns.
“They keep bragging about how they have a chlorine-free
corporation,” she said. “They’ve had that
for the last ten years, that’s not what we’re
complaining about.”
Nonetheless, Crawford said the ads were necessary to address
a local population. “being misinformed by people who
don’t know the facts,” in reference to the CPMC.
“It’s been something we’ve been wanting
to do for sometime, it’s just to inform as many people
as possible,” he said.
Crawford contested the need for further monitoring of pulp
mill emissions, a chief concern of the CPMC, which is holding
a fundraiser on Saturday, 5:00 p.m. at Kelly O’Brien’s
Pub in Eureka on behalf of a program to test local air quality
for toxins such as hydrogen sulfide and formaldehyde.
“They don’t realize they need to have any more
monitoring,” Eytchson said. “They seem to think
they’re exempt from federal and state laws.”
 The
sentiment was echoed by Elizabeth’s husband, CPMC organizer
Pat Eytchson, who said the Hearing Board should at least consider
putting Odle’s petition into effect.
“All it says is Evergreen will have to do some scientific
monitoring of their air emissions, then everyone will have
hard data and we’ll know what’s coming out of
the stacks into the community,” he said.
Eytchson was also dismayed by the potential for prolonging
the process, which he alleged as a tactic common to businesses
seeking to duck environmental regulations, a postulation disputed
by Crawford.
“[The additional testing] is an individual’s
wishes, our scrubbers conform in the last test that we’ve
done and continue to be in compliance, independent tests have
proven it,” he said. “Anything that conforms and
falls under the government guidelines is in compliance.”
Naturally, CPMC members questioned how pollution could be
accepted.
“Compliance means they are putting out pollution within
regulated levels,” Eytchson said. “Do people accept
the risk levels established by government?”
These misgiving regarding unresponsive government also applied
to the district.
“In a way they do seem to be taking their role more
seriously, but so far they’ve granted Evergreen’s
every variance they requested,” he said. “The
pulp mill is so ingrained in the business consciousness, it’s
a difficult issue.”
Eytchson linked the pulp mill issue with the theme of sustainable
development versus an industrialization of the county.
“Pulp mills, because of the chemistry, are things that
inherently produce toxic emission, that’s why you need
a lot of controls to make sure its safe,” he said. “We
want it to be as emission-free as possible, and that’s
not unreasonable with modern technology, it’s a matter
of do the owners want to put the money into it and do they
have the will to do it.”
Eytchson suggested the local air quality movement CPMC was
part of would continue to grow along the model of organizations
dedicated to improving the ecology of Humboldt Bay, a sentiment
echoed by Manns, who said testing would continue even if their
pulp mill concerns were addressed.
“In big cities they have smog control in recognition
of the fact they have a lot of traffic,” she said.
“We don’t have smog control here, that’s
why we’re going to continue monitoring.”
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