The Paper Mill- What Do We Really Know About It?

All of us are well aware of the mill in Old Town from just its smell. It plays a big part in our days, yet how much do we actually know about the mill itself? 

Nine Dragons Paper Mill in Old Town Maine is a Chinese company operating in the United States. There are a total of four mills run under the Nine Dragons name in the U.S.: one being, as established, in Old Town, Maine, another on the west side of the state in Rumford, with the last two  being in Fairmont, West Virginia and Biron, Wisconsin, respectively. These mills each have different specialties, such as recycling pulp, recycling packaging paper, and making paper products. All of these specialties fall under the same ND Paper name. As a whole, Nine Dragons Paper Holdings Limited “is the largest paperboard producer in Asia and one of the largest in the world in terms of production capacity,” (Wikipedia 2022). The company was established in 1995, and focuses its production of new paper from recycled paper, as opposed to most others who use forest products. Using recycled paper could be seen as better for the environment, but it’s important to look into all sides of the story.

Basic background information about paper mills and how they pollute the surrounding area is very important in finding the ways that communities and ecosystems are affected. Paper mills produce water and air pollution, as well as solid waste, which all require proper treatment. Air pollution is mostly produced from the recovery boiler, lime kiln, and bleaching plant of a pulp mill. The purposes of these steps are not relevant, but all pulp mills have this equipment, and they generally produce SO₂, particulate matter, NO_x, TRS compounds, and chlorine compounds (Gavrilescu, 2012). This does not include the air pollution produced by the power plants that supply electricity to the mill. Some of these compounds are greenhouse gasses, and others are carcinogens. Water pollution is even more important in these studies. Pulp mills produce wastewater that is high in BOD, COD, suspended solids, nitrogen, and phosphorus (Gavrilescu, 2012). These are all factors that water quality field technician, Jan Paul, likely tests for at the Penobscot Nation on Indian Island. These compounds are included in pulp mill effluent — what the Nine Dragons wastewater treatment plant is built to treat for. However, landfill leachate from the JRL contains far more varied chemicals that the wastewater treatment plant was not built to treat (Loftus 2022). This has caused many community members great concern.

The background of the company only makes these studies murkier. Zhang Yiu, the head of the Nine Dragons company, is known as the “Queen of Trash ” in China. The mill that Nine Dragons currently occupies was not in operation for three years prior to the new ownership. The new ownership and operation protocols has, though, created 130 new jobs in and around Old Town, Maine, arguably improving the town’s job market.  Since its establishment, Yiu has stated that Nine Dragons will be operating for the next 100 years in Old Town. One major reason that the company is attracted to Maine is because of the fiber in the trees found in Maine. The tree fiber, which is not available in China, assists in the production process of paper products (Barry 2020).

ND Paper, although being a Chinese company, is still required to follow the laws and regulations in place both federally and by the state. In LD1875, part of the Maine legislature, we see that any place with a treatment facility leaves itself open to checks by the state: “The office shall periodically enter, inspect and examine an approved treatment facility or treatment program and examine its books, programs, standards, policies and accounts” (Maine.gov, LD1875). This also allows them to collect ”data, statistics, schedules, and information that the office reasonably requires,” (Maine.gov, LD1875). All of the standards and policies put in place are there for a reason, and if a company such as ND Paper is to run its treatment facility legally, this information is available for the state to check in on.

The overall pollution Nine Dragons Mill has caused in the surrounding area is quite important in finding the overall benefits and drawbacks of the company operating in Old Town. In just the last 12 months, 15,754,040 gallons of leachate were shipped to the Paper Mill (Sunlight Media Collective 2021). Leachate is a “by-product derived from municipal solid wastes due to their physical, chemical, and biological changes and will be formed in landfills, incineration plants, composting plants, and transfer stations, with high strength and toxicity” (Youcai 2018). There is a significant amount of leachate and pollution being produced, but the mill does not have the equipment to properly test and process the waste that is being transported to the mill. This brings issues to the Penobscot Nation, as the government moves towards legislation that will take away indigenous rights to the river so the mill can continue polluting it (Sunlight Media Collective 2021). 

In addition to the PFAS contaminating the Penobscot River, the Maine Campus website revealed information about a very large pipe leak at the mill that occurred in October of 2020. During this leak from the Nine Dragons mill, 30,700 gallons of waste were directly spilled into the Penobscot River. After this leak, the pH level of the river reached a level of 12 on a scale of 14 which caused a drastic change in the acidity of the water. The waste that was leaked consisted of a caustic, sodium hydroxide material. Brian Kavanah, the director of the Department of Environmental Protection’s Bureau of Water Quality, stated, “It appears it created a fish kill because there were 40 to 50 fish found soon after the leak was discovered in that area.” (Brian Kavanah) In addition to the water pollution that is occurring, there is also air pollution being emitted from the mill. The air pollution from the Nine Dragons mill consists of sodium sulfide, gas mercaptan, hydrogen sulfide, and sulfur dioxide (Jackson 2022).

Forever chemicals, known as per/poly-fluoroalkyl, are emitted into water when mills, such as the Old Town mill, dump their processed water back into rivers. The leachate processed contained PFAS at about 410 parts per trillion. For reference, Maine’s safe drinking water threshold for PFAS is 20 parts per trillion. (Loftus 2022). Part of the reason that this persists is that Nine Dragons does not have the proper water treatment facilities to process leachate/PFAS. What they do have is meant to strictly process mill/pulp waste (Wingo 2020). Additionally, according to Shelby Wright of Casella, the technology to fully remove PFAS from leachate and wastewater simply doesn’t exist yet (Loftus 2022). Thus, Maine paper mills are able to get away with contaminating water  due to self-reporting and self-regulating measures allowed by Maine DEP. Nine Dragons is only required to sample their runoff once a year, so theoretically, they could take samples multiple times throughout the year and only report the best one (Wingo 2020). Furthermore, unless ND reports themselves of making violations, any infraction will continue to go unnoticed due to their self-regulation status. 

Nine Dragons is not required to test, treat, or remove the leachate it receives for PFAS — some of the PFAS will be caught by its water processing treatments because it sticks to solid, larger items, but the majority will still pass through. Outside entities who wish to test for PFAS in the Penobscot river will struggle to do so because the large body of water, with currents that ebb and flow, will dilute any sample, making it challenging to know exactly how much PFAS is in the water (Loftus 2022). Once this PFAS is in the water, people in the surrounding communities will suffer, particularly those in Penobscot Nation who live on Indian Island. Although Penobscot Nation is upstream of the Mill, the fish swimming in the river will be the main thing affecting this community when swimming upstream. The fish that live in the river are one of the main food sources for those who live on the island, but due to PFAS, mercury, and dioxin contaminants, they are unable to keep up with the demand of fish people want to consume. Current rates allow for 1-2 fish meals per month without adverse health effects, which is far under what is needed for them to engage in sustenance fishing. If they are to eat these fish, they could experience adverse health effects such as cancer, kidney disease, low birth weight, high cholesterol, and immune system disruption (Miller 2021). 

Similar paper mills to ND Paper have seen health effects with people living close to the actual mill. A North Carolina survey found a correlation between proximity of school kids to pulp and paper mills and prevalence of wheezing symptoms during school hours (Mirabelli, 2006). This shows that ND could pose health concerns to the community with children and adults, as the spread of the mill reaches out into multiple school districts (Old Town, Orono, Veazie…). This impact seems to be solely from air pollution that the kids saw in their day to day life, rather than from water pollution which could be affecting people in the Penobscot Nation. 

Water management itself is a large concern when looking through the impacts ND Paper has had within the Penobscot ecosystem. Cheryl Robertson informed us that Juniper Ridge Landfill had been using Nine Dragons Paper Mill as a wastewater facility when it did not have the capacity. While finding good sources on this is difficult, through looking at public records, there are more emails as well as records from Chapter 400 Petition to Modify Maines Solid Waste Management Rules, we have learned the extent of the issue (State of Maine, 2019). According to Portland media, an average of 10 million gallons of leachate is received and “processed” by the Nine Dragons Mill. The problem is that they have a permit to dump, but they don’t have the facilities to treat leachate (Portland Media, 2018). 

The mill dumps the wastewater once going through the ‘treatment’ directly into the Penobscot River. Juniper Ridge Landfill itself has a very complex system as well because they are collecting out-of-state waste. This makes identifying how toxic the pollution that ND paper is pouring into the river difficult. ND is required to do a quarterly wet test which essentially is where you take an organism and put it into different concentrations of the sample and see if it lives or dies. Nine Dragons has a permit that allows them to monitor what directly happens to the mill, which in turn leaves the sample quite moot. (Portland Media, 2018) Because JRL accepts out-of-state waste, there’s really no way to test all of the different toxins that are in the leachate because there’s just too much trash to test, and ND doesn’t benefit enough from sustainable sourcing to stop these habits, so they continue giving the waste to the mill.