Regulatory and Technical Issues Related to Mill Pond Closures, 1996 Environmental Conference Proceedings

Historically wood product facilities were constructed next to natural or manmade surface water bodies. These mill ponds were used to store raw logs as de facto stormwater retention basins, fire water storage, and mill effluent discharge points. As manufacturing practices and enviromnental regulations changed, these Ponds became obsolete and restricted full use of mill property. Two wood product facilities, one in Washington and one in Oregon, attempted to close existing Ponds for facility expansion required extensive regulatory evaluation, negotiations, and focused environmental assessments. Regulatory issues requiring attention included loss of wetland habitat, water quality impacts to receiving waters during pond draining, disposal of organic rich dredge material, and replacement of fire water sources. Environmental issues included characterizing submerged sediments, removing hundreds of marketable logs on the Pond bottom, evaluating groundwater impacts, differentiating between naturally occurring and facility generated petroleum hydrocarbons in Pond sediments, and developing cost effective remedial alternatives for impacted sediments. The following activities were selected to resolve regulatory and enviromnental issues. In Washington, an innovative sediment characterization approach and negotiations with regulatory agencies enables the mill owners to drain the pond and select an on-site remedial alternative that saved millions of dollars and produced additional industrial zoned land in an area where additional industrial zoning was not allowed. At the Oregon mill, a similar characterization approach was coupled with engineering design and regulatory evaluation to allow for fast track construction of a new aeration stabilization basin