DEP sues Environmentalists over Georgia Pacific Pulp Mill Pollution Lawsuit

On July 20, newspaper accounts reported one of the most blatant anti-citizen moves yet by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection under Governor JEB Bush and his Department Secretary David Struhs.

Alachua County environmental activist December McSherry writes:

David Struh's, DEP administrator, has approved a 5 mile pollution pipeline that will make St.Johns River a corporate dioxin dumping ground.

The Palatka pulp mill is releasing 200 times more deadly dioxin than the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers safe. With Struh's approval, Georgia Pacific will release 36 million gallons/day of dioxin chlorine laden wastewater into the St.John's River.

Georgia Pacific has released such heavy doses of dioxins into Rice Creek that biologists have found largemouth bass and alligators turning up sterile. Animals have been born sexless, female fish are growing male organs and mosquitofish are now deformed. Grassbeds have already been damaged by the plume of toxins coming from Rice Creek. Fishermen have reported for five years that they are bringing in fish and shrimp with multiple sores and lesions.

It is clear that dioxins are persistent disrupters of the basic building blocks of life. Hormones have been scrambled. Heavy doses of these toxins from this industrial plant are destroying immune systems throughout the food chain.

Struh's approval of a construction permit of a 5 mile pollution pipeline is not a solution to this industrial problem.

Georgia Pacific should be required to retrofit the pulp mill to switch out of chlorine dioxin technology to oxygen use, as EPA has suggested. The company would save a $1 million over the cost of the proposed pipeline.

Linda Young has worked tirelessly for five years on this important case to protect the citizens, the environment and our natural resources.

"Struh's would like to punish good caring citizens like Linda Young who go to the courts to seek justice to defend the citizens and the environment from corrupt bureaucrats such as David Struhs, DEP administrator," charged December McSherry, an environmental activist in Alachua County. "Struh's should just head up the Department of Industrial Polluters Protection Agency."

December McSherry

Saturday, July 20, 2002
DEP calls paper mill challenge 'frivolous'
By BRAD PARSONS
Special to The Gainesville Sun:

The Florida Department of Environmental Protection filed a motion Thursday labeling a challenge brought by environmental groups against a North Florida paper mill as "frivolous" and requesting that they be made to pay the department's legal fees in the case.

Thursday's motion is the latest salvo fired in an eight-year-long dispute pitting the DEP and Palatka's Georgia Pacific paper mill against the Putnam County Environmental Council, the Stewards of the St. John's River and Linda Young of Tallahassee's Clean Water Network.

The environmental advocacy groups have fought Georgia Pacific's efforts to secure a DEP permit, which would allow it to pipe millions of gallons of chlorine-laden effluent into the St. John's River.

DEP attorneys said, in their petition to Secretary of Environmental Protection David Struhs, that the environmental groups' behavior during a recent three-week-long administrative hearing was intended "primarily to harass or to cause unnecessary delay . . . or to needlessly increase the cost of licensing."

Florida law requires losers in administrative hearings to pay court and attorney costs if the proceeding is brought frivolously.

Young said she was astonished by DEP's accusation.

"We hired three attorneys and eight expert witnesses for this case and we've gone through three months of discovery and a three-week trial," Young said. "We've spent all of our money to defend the St. John's River from that wastewater. I don't know how you can call that frivolous."

The wastewater contains dioxin, a by-product of the mill's chlorine bleaching process used to clean and refine pulp. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency studies suggest human exposure to dioxin could cause severe skin disease and increase the risk of cancer.

According to EPA data collected from wildlife exposed to dioxin, prolonged exposure to low levels of the chemical "might result in reproductive or developmental effects" in humans.

The Georgia Pacific plant has been discharging into Rice Creek, a tributary of the St. John's River 40 miles east of Gainesville, for more than 50 years. A 1997 EPA study of bluegill fish tissue taken from Rice Creek found an average dioxin level of 2.8 parts per trillion, exceeding the agency's acceptable upper limit of 1.2 parts per trillion.

The DEP declined to comment on elements of the proceedings until Struhs decides the case on Aug. 17. However, spokeswoman Deena Wells said the pipeline plan addressed the area's environmental and economic needs.

"The pipeline will bring Rice Creek into compliance with all water quality standards," Wells said. "It will protect families and jobs in North Florida as well as the environment."

Young said the pipeline would simply shift the contamination problem to a larger body of water. She said the simplest solution would be to remove chlorine from the paper-making process.

In 1999 the EPA recommended that Georgia Pacific switch to a technology that uses oxygen instead of chlorine to strip lignin, a sticky, tar-like substance from wood.

The EPA estimated the switch would cost the paper mill approximately $20 million, about the same as the pipeline. Struhs will decide the fate of Georgia Pacific's permit Aug. 17. Administrative Law Judge Don Alexander will decide whether the DEP's request for legal recompensation will appear before Struhs. Alexander refused a similar motion July 3.