PORT TOWNSEND – An Environmental Protection Agency official with oversight of a state Department of Ecology air-emissions permit issued this year to Port Townsend Paper Corp. has asked Ecology to reopen the kraft paper mill’s five-year permit file, citing process deficiencies.
The air-emissions permit already faces an appeal filed this year with Ecology by a former Port Townsend resident.
Nancy Helm, EPA federal and delegated air programs manager in Seattle, said, “We think there are three deficiencies in the [Port Townsend Paper] permit that are of sufficient magnitude that they require a prompt remedy.
“We could like to see Ecology reopen the permit process to correct these problems.”
In a Nov. 5 e-mail to Merley F. McCall, Ecology’s industrial section supervisor, Helm calls Ecology’s exemption of the mill from compliance monitoring “arbitrary and capricious.”
“The permit writer does not have the authority to make this type of exemption,” Helm tells McCall.
Helm’s e-mail notes that the exemption was granted even though the plant clearly knew that compliance assurance monitoring was required.
