Stench rose at SC paper mill after a key pollution control device was removed

The stench permeated communities, driving people inside their homes as they tried to escape the nauseating odor. On the worst days, a smell similar to rotten eggs seeped inside houses, stinking up kitchens and bedrooms.

EPA proposes settlement with New-Indy mill over pollution, but some say it’s not enough

More than 47,000 complaints were filed by people upset about the persistent odor that started in early 2021.

The saga of the New-Indy paper mill has become one of the biggest environmental stories during the past two years in South Carolina, sparking questions about why the unpleasant odor came from a plant that had operated quietly in York County since the late 1950s.

As it turns out, the odor problem that affected many people could have been avoided if New-Indy — with the approval of state regulators — had not shut off a key piece of pollution control equipment, according to a consulting report and emails from the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.

The equipment, known as a steam stripper, had for years controlled odors at the plant. It was aptly named because it stripped out and neutralized some of the most noxious, foul-smelling pollution generated by the paper mill along the Catawba River.

But records show that New-Indy believed the plant could rely on another way to keep odors from escaping into the community: running the foul-smelling waste through the paper mill’s wastewater system.

So in 2020, about a year after New-Indy bought the former Bowater plant and prepared to switch from making bleached paper to liner board, it persuaded DHEC to allow the shutdown of the steam stripper.

The environmental agency revised an air pollution construction permit the company needed to make upgrades to the paper plant, letting New-Indy bypass the stripper and sending the waste directly to the wastewater system. There was no reason to deny the change, the agency said.

Unfortunately for people living in the area, the wastewater system was not working properly.

A basin, known as the ASB, had become clogged with gunk and could not handle the waste that would have gone to the steam stripper, a 2021 consulting report says. Those interrelated problems, along with a decision by New-Indy to continue production at full capacity, generated the pungent smells people complained about, according to the report by consultant Ken Norcross.

“The decision to remove the steam stripper from service contributed significantly to the release of malodorous and dangerous chemicals,’’ Norcross wrote in the 2021 report for lawyers suing New-Indy.

“So much sludge fed into the ASB that it’s inherent treatment capacity was significantly reduced,’’ the Norcross report continued. “New Indy had apparently assumed the ASB would be fully operational to justify shutting down the steam stripper.’’

State Sen. Michael Johnson, R-York, said odor problems “just snowballed’’ after the stripper was turned off.

“It got to a point where they weren’t able to control it,’’ he said.

New-Indy, a national company owned partially by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, ran into trouble with state and federal regulators in early 2021 after people began complaining about smells from the plant they said were stronger than the typical odor associated with paper mills.

Complaints to DHEC came from areas around Charlotte in both Carolinas, and were so frequent that DHEC and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency began investigating. Both agencies eventually ordered New-Indy to make improvements to the plant and collectively fined the company $1.2 million after finding violations of state and federal environmental rules.

Today, the company faces ongoing scrutiny from state and federal agencies on a range of fronts. Among those are questions about aging wastewater basins near the Catawba River. Waste in some basins contains dioxin, a cancer causing material, raising questions about whether the toxic substance will leak into the river.

The Catawba, a drinking water source for the city of Chester, winds through central South Carolina before emptying into Lake Wateree north and east of Columbia.

Environmental agency scrutinized

Johnson said there are many issues involving New-Indy to sort out. But one of the biggest questions he has is the decision to turn off the steam stripper.

That warrants investigation, and depending on what comes of that, the state may need to change South Carolina rules to avoid similar problems with industrial plants, Johnson said.

“I haven’t started the autopsy yet because we haven’t fixed the problem ,’’ Johnson said. “But one of my goals is that once this is fixed, and this odor is gone, and we are back to a normal way, I’m going to begin the process of ‘How did we get here, why did we get here, who dropped the ball and where?’ ’’

Johnson, R-York, said he’s had too many constituents complain about odors during the past two years, including some who said the fumes made them vomit.

“I don’t understand the regulatory lapses that allowed us to get there,’’Johnson said. “That’s what we need to figure out and at some point address.’’

The Department of Health and Environmental Control is supposed to keep an eye on industries to make sure they follow environmental rules and obey the terms of pollution discharge permits the department issues to them.

DHEC now concedes that its decision to allow the stripper to be shut down was a problem, saying in an email that “removal of the stripper may have contributed to increased odors from the facility.’’

When questioned about why it approved removal of the steam stripper, DHEC said federal regulations allow pulp and paper plants to discharge material directly to the wastewater system. In an email to The State, the agency said it could not justify continuing to require the steam stripper because it had no reason to think there would be a problem.

“The facility’s owner or operator certified in its construction permit application that no applicable standard will be contravened or violated and that the permit application was true, accurate, and complete based on information formed after reasonable inquiry,’’ DHEC said in an email to The State.

The agency’s decision to let the stripper be turned off doesn’t surprise one veteran environmental lawyer who has tangled with DHEC many times during the past 40 years.

Spartanburg attorney Gary Poliakoff, who is not involved in legal action against New-Indy, said DHEC has a history of accepting assertions by companies at face value, rather than double-checking their claims. When the agency has checked up on industry claims, it has done a good job, particularly on groundwater issues. But that doesn’t happen enough, he said.

“In many other fields of environmental monitoring and regulation and enforcement, they simply take the word of the facility’s own paid consultants without any serious review,’’ he said. “Frequently it occurs.’’

Poliakoff also said that the agency has rarely taken odor issues seriously. He’s handled legal cases on behalf of citizens opposed to an array of odor-producing sites, including mega landfills and corporate animal farms.

Johnson, the state senator, said he would like to know whether DHEC has enough authority to oversee companies like New-Indy.

“I don’t want to put undue restrictions on business, but I just want to make sure DHEC has the power to make sure this never happens again,’’ he said.

What was DHEC told?

Lawsuits against New Indy and public comment letters have taken aim at the company, not DHEC. The company misled DHEC when it sought to turn off the odor-controlling steam stripper, according to comment letters and lawsuit allegations.

In a March 11 letter to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, attorneys suing New Indy said information the company provided DHEC persuaded the agency not to require a “critical pollution control analysis.’’ The letter said the company misrepresented the amount of pollution that would result after it disconnected the steam stripper.

In addition, while the company said there would be some increase in hydrogen sulfide releases when it made changes at the paper plant, the pollution estimates were inaccurate, a 2021 class action lawsuit against New-Indy says.

“The actual emissions were much higher, producing undesirable levels of air contaminants that are injurious to human health or welfare, or are unreasonably interfering with enjoyment of life or use of property,’’ the December 2021 suit said, citing DHEC documents.

Some of the information New-Indy used to justify shutting down the steam stripper in favor of treating waste in other parts of the wastewater system was based on how the system was functioning in 2015, according to another lawsuit against the company.

Estimates of the amount of hydrogen sulfide and total reduced sulfides the company said would be removed “were false and misleading,’’ the lawsuit said.

After New-Indy had converted the mill to producing liner board from bleached paper in early 2021, the suit said the wastewater plant’s ASB was in such poor shape that it could not properly remove certain foul-smelling pollutants, including hydrogen sulfide and total reduced sulfides.

New-Indy “bypassed the facility’s inoperable steam stripper and proceeded to hard pipe foul condensate ... to its treatment system that was in disrepair,’’ the suit said, noting that New-Indy also ran the plant at near capacity, generating pollution the wastewater system could not handle.

The suit said surrounding residential areas were blanketed with “dangerous and malodorous air pollutants.’’ The suit said New-Indy knew or should have known that the wastewater treatment system did not work properly.

Law firms leading the charge against New-Indy include the Motley Rice firm of South Carolina and the Baird Mandalas law firm of Delaware and Maryland.

New Indy’s defense

New-Indy, which says it has made substantial strides in improving the plant, declined to address allegations in the lawsuits.

But in an Aug. 18 email, the company said it thought it needed to use a different waste treatment method than the steam stripper, in place since 2001. Some of the noxious waste, or foul condensate, already was being sent directly to the wastewater system, as it had been before New- Indy bought the plant, the company said in its email to The State.

“The mill had been using the wastewater treatment system to treat a portion of foul condensate for many years without any issues prior to New-Indy purchasing the facility,’’ the company email said.

Wastewater experts the company had dealt with advocated dropping the stripper, according to the email.

New-Indy also said the wastewater system wound up not working as expected. The company blamed “prior owners’’ for failing to maintain the ASB section of the wastewater plant, a problem that allowed solid material to build up and make it less effective at treating the stripper waste.

The plant has had multiple owners, but the New-Indy email did not say which prior owner it was referring to.

“Odors appear to have been caused by the ASB becoming overwhelmed with solids,’’ and that interfered with the treatment process, the company said.

In addition to blaming the poor condition of the ASB on previous owners, New-Indy’s email said the wastewater basin did not operate properly because a contractor who had worked on converting the mill for use by New-Indy let excess wood flow into the treatment system. That, the email said, “further reduced treatment capacity’’’ and allowed hydrogen sulfide to form.

Aside from problems with the wastewater system, the hazard of maintaining the steam stripper was a factor in New Indy deciding to bypass use of the pollution control device. The company’s email said that, prior to New-Indy taking control of the mill, a person was killed while performing maintenance on the stripper.

Odors that enveloped the surrounding community went on for so long that New-Indy ultimately restarted the steam stripper in May 2021. The unit had been cut off in September 2020, according to New-Indy.

Today, odors from the plant have diminished, but they haven’t stopped. Facebook pages set up to share information about New-Indy regularly show people complaining about the foul air.

New-Indy has pumped oxygen into the waste treatment system to keep odors down and it is using “best practices’’ to improve and maintain the system, the company said. Since June 2021, hydrogen sulfide levels — often associated with rotten egg smells — have been negligible along the plant’s boundaries, the email said.

What’s next for the plant remains a point of discussion between DHEC and New-Indy.

The company’s email to The State said the “mill continues to explore options to improve the effectiveness of the steam stripper’’ that it restarted last year.

At the same time, DHEC told the company in a June 29 letter to minimize undesirable levels of air contaminants.

One way to do that is to install a new steam stripper, the agency said. The agency also said New-Indy needs to take additional action related to its wastewater treatment plant to minimize air pollution. The agency has a plan that will require improvements at New-Indy.

“DHEC has been working on an amendment ..... which will incorporate all actions determined necessary to reduce and minimize undesirable levels of air contaminants,’’ the agency’s email to The State said.