What's to become of closed Tacoma paper mill? First, a long, complex cleanup

Yahoo

17-04-2025

The turnaround to get a closed Tacoma paper mill on the market to sell will take some time and faces a complex road of dismantling and cleanup.
Representatives for the former WestRock Tacoma Mill, 801 Portland Ave. E., announced the facility's closure in August 2023. Demolition documents since submitted to the city show at least one asbestos-treated portion of the mill as well as wood-framed fuel storage bins slowly deteriorating and requiring special handling in the decommissioning process.
The nearly 60-acre site is owned by an LLC affilliated with Smurfit Westrock. WestRock in July 2024 completed a merger with Dublin-based Smurfit Kappa, a folding-paperboard box manufacturing company. Before the completed merger, WestRock announced the closure of the Tacoma mill and other sites as part of restructuring/consolidation efforts, which continue.
For example, on April 8 Smurfit Westrock notified the state of Oregon of the planned closure of its corrugated plant in Portland.
Robby Johnson is director of external communications in North America for Smurfit Westrock. In response to questions about the Tacoma site, he told The News Tribune earlier this month via email, 'There's not much of an update, but I can confirm we're still working on our decommissioning efforts to best position the property for sale and will put it on the market as soon as it is ready.'
To that end, a permit application was filed March 13 with the City of Tacoma for demolition of two portions of the mill.
According to the project description on the city's permit portal, plans call for demolition of 'timber framed hog fuel bins down to existing grade to create access to precipitator.'
Work also will include removing 'upper asbestos-containing portions of precipitator with high-reach excavator,' noting, 'The sections of the precipitator being removed were deemed unsafe to access by a structural engineer for manual abatement.'
A hog-fuel bin is a storage container for processed wood waste, while an electrostatic precipitator is used to remove particulate matter, such as ash, from flue gas generated during combustion of the hog fuel.
An industry website describing hog fuel states that 'mills need to dispose of this waste and typically use it as biomass fuel for a boiler, often in combination with natural gas.'
A variance had to be requested and received from Puget Sound Clean Air Agency 'to remove the asbestos containing materials mechanically utilizing wet methods,' according to the project's details.
The job's value was listed on the application at $300,000.
The variance was issued last month according to Chris Kitchen, inspection manager with PSCAA.
'The hog-fuel bin and the precipitator at the site are in a location that is in disrepair,' Kitchen told The News Tribune in a phone interview, 'and it's just unsafe for an asbestos-abatement team' to proceed to treat it like a routine removal.
As Kitchen described, a report was submitted detailing issues and level of hazards facing work crews as well as a work plan, and daily progress reports will be required to be submitted to Kitchen until completion.
'On top of that, we require that they hire a third-party industrial hygienist that takes air samples through the demolition process and the loading of the waste process,' Kitchen said. If air monitoring shows unacceptable levels of pollutants, 'they would need to go through a plan where the industrial hygienist says, 'OK, something was too dusty, or we disturbed something too much. Let's reorganize and come up with a modified plan to make sure that that is under control.''
An inspection letter to the city was shared with The News Tribune. In it, the onsite inspector noted, 'The chip bin structure has severe wood decay with some members fully decayed at the bearing end. The old steel shoring installed to compensate for the wood decay has extensive corrosion with some shoring columns starting to fail.'
The inspector added, 'With the extent of the wood decay and steel corrosion it isn't possible to safely demolish only a portion of this structure as it is more likely than not that a progressive collapse will occur when the demolition is performed. Thus I strongly recommend that this structure be fully demolished operating a machine from the maximum practical standoff distance.'
The precipitator is also in bad shape, with the inspector writing, 'The structural steel is heavily corroded. Access catwalks are extensively corroded with structural supports that have failed.
'Therefore it is my professional opinion that the risk of injury to any workers attempting to remediate the asbestos materials is excessive with the probability of severe injury including death exceeding any reasonable standard.'
He called for the demolition of the precipitator to be 'safely performed using a high reach operating at the maximum practical standoff distance equipped to shear the steel members and remediating the asbestos from the debris on the ground once it is moved a safe distance from the structure.'
The mill dates back to the 1920s, according to county records.
The mill's hog fuel was a factor as to why the facility appeared to still be in service months after the mill's announced closure, with steam plumes continuing to fill the air.
In November 2023, The News Tribune reported that while paper operations were finished, mill decommissioning was ongoing and the boiler continued to operate as a result.
Communities for a Healthy Bay executive director Melissa Malott wrote at the time, 'Under their currently active air and water permits, WestRock is allowed to burn the remaining on-site hog fuel and wastewater treatment sludge from the paper pulping process.'
The News Tribune in August 2023 also reported on how the mill previously was the city's biggest water customer, and the mill's usage played a role in helping the city keep the municipal water system flushed.
In response to questions, Erin Babbo, communications manager at Tacoma Public Utilities, told The News Tribune via email this week, 'Tacoma Public Utilities is still providing power and water to WestRock but at a significantly lower amount.'
'Tacoma Water has modified how we operate to ensure proper flushing of the system,' Babbo added.
According to the state Department of Ecology's online page dedicated to the former Tacoma mill, the Tacoma WestRock site 'has confirmed or suspected contamination that could potentially harm people and the environment,' blamed on 'industrial practices and historical land use.'
The cleanup process occurs under the Model Toxics Control Act, which serves as the state's environmental cleanup law.
Ecology notes that the site 'continues to discharge stormwater and other permitted streams under its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System Permit (NPDES) to Commencement Bay.'
It added that the department 'has begun negotiations with WestRock CP, LLC; Simpson Tacoma Kraft Company, LLC; International Paper Company; potentially liable persons for the site, for an agreed order to complete a remedial investigation, feasibility study, and draft cleanup action plan.'
An agreed order has yet to be reached and sent out for public comment.
Its most recent Preliminary Determination of Liability letter was sent Feb. 5, 2025, to Simpson Tacoma Kraft Company, LLC in Seattle. Ecology proposed to find the LLC among other entities liable for the release of hazardous substances at the site.
In the ownership lineage the letter cites, the LLC purchased the site from Champion International in 1985 and owned and operated the site until 2014 when it sold the mill to RockTenn CP, LLC (RockTenn).
In the letter, Ecology cites multiple incidents in its proposed finding under the MTCA, including:
▪ August 1996: Approximately 500 gallons of 93% sulfuric acid escaped containment and leaked onto soil.
▪ November 1996: 'North strong black liquor tank suffered a complete failure and over 100,000 gallons of black liquor (byproduct of pulping process) spilled from the tank instantaneously. Black liquor spilled over a retaining wall and approximately 100 feet of the Puyallup River shoreline was sprayed.'
▪ 2014: Sediment sampling results noted in a later Ecology memorandum indicated an increase in dioxin/furan levels, both toxic chemicals, measured in sediments between 2004 and 2014.
Previous cleanup was part of the Commencement Bay, Near Shore/Tideflats Superfund site work and involved both Simpson Kraft and Champion to address 60 years' worth of environmental damage.
An EPA Region 10 report from 1999 stated that 'Wastewater from the plant ... was untreated until the 1960s.'
The companies worked with federal biologists for eight years, restoring fish and bird habitat and capping contaminated sediment at a cost of $4 million.
Brittny Goodsell is the Southwest Region Office communications manager for the state Department of Ecology, who responded via email to The News Tribune's questions about the site.
Goodsell said, 'We have sent letters to potentially liable parties and we are negotiating a legal document called an agreed order.'
The order is not a final cleanup plan, Goodsell noted, 'but it's the legal mechanism that moves the potentially liable parties through the state's cleanup process. This will include a sampling investigation at the site, evaluating cleanup options, and proposing a draft cleanup action plan. These steps do not begin until after we sign the agreed order.'
Goodsell added that there will be a public comment period before the order is finalized.
'Folks on our interested parties list will receive a notification from us when the comment period begins. There will be additional opportunities for public comment throughout the cleanup process, after we sign the agreed order,' Goodsell added.
As for how long the site cleanup could take, she did not have an estimate.
'The cleanup process for large and complicated sites, such as this one, can take years. Despite various timing obstacles, we're committed to completing each step as thoroughly as possible,' Goodsell wrote.
Logan Danzek is policy manager for the Tacoma nonprofit environmental organization Communities for a Healthy Bay. In a recent phone interview, he reiterated that such cleanup action is lengthy and complex and that CHB would be keeping watch over the proceedings.
'One of the things that I often stress to folks when I'm talking about these cleanups is that Ecology really relies on a sort of self-directed and self-guided cleanup effort' with often a slate of project alternatives possible, he said.
'We love to see the most protective cleanup be implemented ... but the result is often somewhere in the middle,' mostly because of the cost, he noted. 'We expect something similar for the WestRock site.'
'Organizationally, we try to thread the needle between economic activity and environmental conservation,' Danzek said. 'Recognizing the realities of where the parcel is ... there's going to be a lot of industry that is going to be eyeing that site.'
He added, 'Whatever industry or facility is intent on opening up there, we are going to be very conscientious and concerned about their proposed site plan. Are they implementing the most up-to-date stormwater systems? Are they going to be tracking and mitigating any sort of emissions that are going to be occurring on the site?'
He continued: 'I think showing an interest in cleaning up and righting the wrongs of historical contamination, there is a really huge opportunity to make that site something focused on contamination cleanup or education, something focused on sustainability.'
Send email to Tara Roberts at [e-mail] to request to be on the interested parties list and receive notifications from Ecology related to the site.
More information also is available on Ecology's project website.