Domtar fined $64,650 for water permit violations
KINGSPORT, Tenn. (WJHL) — The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation has fined Domtar $64,650 for violating its water discharge permit multiple times in the months following startup of its new Kingsport recycled packaging facility.
The company, which also must pay $13,024.10 in damages, can avoid paying nearly $52,000 of the penalty if it submits an acceptable “corrective action plan” and meets milestones designed to ensure compliance.
A local water quality expert called the process leading to the fines, and what he said appears to be Domtar’s full cooperation and efforts to remedy the situation, an example of “the regulatory process work(ing) the way it was supposed to.”
TDEC’s order and fine assessment, dated April 8, notes that TDEC staff began investigating “multiple complaints of a white slime in the stream” from outfalls into the South Fork Holston River as early as March 31, 2023. Domtar began operating its new plant Jan. 15, 2023 after a nearly three-year shutdown and construction of the new operation on the site of a former paper plant.
TDEC staff observed the white substance covering the river substrate (riverbed rock) and floating in the water downstream from one of the nine approved outfalls where treated water leaves Domtar.
Testing showed that “biochemical oxygen demand” levels exceeded permit effluent levels in February and March, 2023. East Tennessee State University biology professor Joe Bidwell told News Channel 11 that measure is an important one for health of aquatic species.
“Problems start to arise when that effluent gets out into the river, and if the oxygen demand is too high, then we start getting competition for oxygen with other organisms like fish and other inverts that could cause problems,” Bidwell said.
He said the Domtar treatment system, which uses a holding lagoon, appears to use settlement of particulate matter as well as bacteria and microorganisms “that are there to feed on the organic matter to get that out of the water before it goes out to the river.”
By May and June 2023, TDEC was finding bacteria downstream of the outfall that weren’t present upstream.
“If that colony of bacteria proliferates too much, it starts to cover the substrate and competes for space with other organisms and really affects the micro environment where stream insects and other types of organisms live,” Bidwell said.
Some issues were reported in September and October 2023, and Domtar also got a letter from TDEC about foam from its treatment lagoon blowing onto ballfields in Domtar Park in early March of this year.
However, the TDEC order also notes that Domtar’s monthly status updates from September 2023 through January 2024 show biochemical oxygen demand values below the permitted limit.
“Each letter also summarized ongoing actions to correct previously noted violations of BOD and solids effluent limits,” the order concludes.
Bidwell said any impacts on “resident organisms” were probably mitigated by the type of water the effluent was entering. “The fact that it’s a flowing system certainly helps because water is constantly flushing through,” Bidwell said.
He also said his review of the case left him with the sense that Domtar was struggling with a major startup of a new process and working as diligently as it could to comply with environmental regulations.
“I believe the company acted in good faith and in reporting issues they were having and the state did the right thing by investigating,” Bidwell said.
“Because there were violations, fines were levied, but the company has worked to improve the situation, and I think the latest data that have come out have indicated that the criteria for the effluent are back where they should be.”
News Channel 11 has reached out to Domtar for a statement.
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