Longview Takeaways

Timber supplies in the PNW remain stressed due to lack of harvesting on federal lands. Lack of active management on Federal Forests has contributed to a forest health crisis. Seasonally, wildfires consume Federal forests in the western US and threaten neighboring private and state forest lands. Based on the current legislative environment, there is little opportunity for expansion. The regional market for public timber is severely constrained and the supply of private timber is largely maxed out.

Companies such as WestRock and NORPAC are already so deeply established in the PNW that their decision to stay there and expand allows them to remain competitive due to the roots they’ve put down long ago. The investments these companies made over the last few years demonstrate their commitment to the region despite the downward turn the forestry products market is facing there. From its railway to its roads to its ports, the opportunity to import and export locally and easily is a major incentive to invest in the area.

In 2024, WestRock and Ireland-based Smurfit Kappa signed a merger in agreement to create a $34 billion publicly traded company with 67 pulp mills that annually manufacture 23 million tons of containerboard. The Longview mill site once employed more than 2,000 union workers, but the work force declined over the years as the plant changed hands and paper machines shuttered to make pulp operations profitable.

The merger deal emerged following a sharp drop-off in demand for cardboard boxes since the second half of last year. The drop-off was not a surprise, because demand had reached record levels globally during the Covid pandemic when demand for consumer goods spiked during lockdowns. However, Smurfit CEO Tonh Smurfit said prospects for long-term growth remain solid due to the demands of e-commerce. 

Ecology requires that the mills' Operations and Maintenance Manual must include procedures to prevent solid wastes from entering state surface waters. Workers have said, and provided pictures, indicating that waste plastic that arrived at the mill as an unwanted part of the feed stock can enter the waste water treatment plant and the Columbia River by three paths. The plastic often blows off of the sites and into the river.

Workers have also mentioned that WestRock's feedstock such as sawdust and wood chips are also spilled and thus discharged into the River which barges and ships load/unload chips and sawdust at the mill’s dock. They store multi-acre piles of chips and sawdust very close to the river’s banks. The mill acknowledges the wind often blows sawdust into the air and warns the mill workers to wear eye protection when near the grounds. The mill has not adequately attempted to secure the sawdust and chip piles to prevent these materials from being blown into the river, or spilled during loading/unloading at the river’s edge.

One consequence of a reduced labor force is that the stormwater management crew is severely undermanned. This means that the heavy winter rains often wash large quantities of wood chips off of the piles. These chips flow towards the stormwater drain grates, where the masses of chips pile up and block the drains. Since the stormwater cannot drain as designed, the water accumulates and can and has eventually flowed over the mill’s berms into state waters. 

“Now, you look at the workforce at the mill, hundreds and hundreds of workers are gone now and that has had impact on the ability of the mill to conduct environmental protection and that has been at the root of what other folks have said here tonight, is that there are not enough workers here to do this. You hear about the leaking caustic tank, here it is, 50% caustic leaking on the ground. Huge ice cycles of caustic materials leaking from the tank, crystals of caustic coating the ground. And why is that, because there aren’t enough workers at the mill that are assigned to carry out the procedures and operations and maintenance manual as supposed to be part of the conditions in this permit that are enforced.” -Bill Donaldson, former employee.

While the company asserts hazardous materials storage areas will be inspected on a regular basis, the mill does not authorize its personnel to take time out of their work shifts to actually conduct inspections as needed. Hearings testimony described a photograph of a leaking tank containing highly caustic materials, which has been leaking for some time now. Testimony at the public hearing even claimed that WestRock had embarked on process changes (called Whitewater) that actually increased discharge water temperatures, burning workers.

Washington State Dept. of Ecology published a notice of an opportunity to comment on the renewal of the WestRock mill permit in The Daily News on July 16, 2015. Commenters provided Ecology with multiple photographs, taken from a video, which show endangered Columbia River smelt fish kills in and beyond the mill’s water intake system. The smelt are apparently impinged in the mill’s revolving screen, which is beyond the intake system entry, but before the pumps. The mill scrapes or backwashes/scrapes the revolving screen, knocking the fish (and any other aquatic species) off of the screen. Videos show hundreds of dead or dying fish in an open tank. Here is every reason to believe that endangered salmon and steelhead, as well as ecologically important species such as lamprey, suffer the same fate. All available evidence indicates 100% mortality for any aquatic life that enters the intake system. 

Over more than a year, NORPAC failed to properly treat and monitor its stormwater and wastewater, and did not fully address pollution violations at the paper mill when informed by Ecology to take corrective action.

Stormwater and wastewater from the NORPAC facility is treated at neighboring industrial facilities before ultimately being discharged to the Columbia River. Sediments, chemicals, and debris from stormwater and processed wastewater can harm aquatic life and reduce water quality. The Columbia River is home to many aquatic species including endangered salmon and steelhead. 

Between April 2020 and November 2021, the company failed 71 times to meet pollution limits for solids and organic materials in its wastewater process. In addition, there were pH violations that can be harmful to water quality and fish. Other pollutants were not monitored as frequently as required under the mill’s permit.

NORPAC’s permit requires the company to take corrective action when it does not meet stormwater pollution discharge benchmarks. NORPAC failed to successfully take corrective action to prevent stormwater pollution violations in at least 20 incidents at the plant.

Paper mills are among the worst sources of pollution in the modern world. Various byproducts containing hydrogen sulfide, methyl mercaptan, dimethyl sulfide, dimethyl disulfide, and other volatile sulfur compounds are the cause of the malodorous air emissions characteristic for pulp mills utilizing the kraft process. Emissions from paper mills can produce strong odors in the communities in which they are located, where exposed populations include children, the elderly, people with respiratory conditions, and others who may be sensitive to air pollutants.

In June of 2024, several workers claim they were exposed to a cancer-causing chemical for several days last week while working at Longview’s WestRock facility. Two went to the emergency room with one being referred by a clinic over suspected exposure to hexavalent chromium, a type of chromium typically produced in an industrial setting that is known to cause cancer. Robby Johnson, senior manager of Corporate Communications for WestRock, said during maintenance on a recovery boiler, “areas of colored scale” and “deposits were discovered on the boiler tubes.” 

According to the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), hexavalent chromium can have adverse effects on the respiratory system, kidneys, liver, skin and eyes. Another worker said WestRock employees ridiculed them for their reluctance to continue working after the suspicious substance was discovered. Asked about that reaction, WestRock’s Johnson said, “I can’t confirm that. I can confirm that work was immediately stopped in the area, and that we are continuing to ensure the safety of our team members.”

OSHA established an eight hour-to-weight exposure limit of 5 micrograms per cubic meter of air. According to an employee, the test results indicated the exposure level was 4,000 times the permissible limit.

Residents in Longview and surrounding areas, including Kelso and Portland, have reported a strong, unpleasant odor, sometimes described as burning rubber, garbage, or natural gas. Those affected have reported headaches, eye irritation, sore throats, and difficulty falling asleep, including in children.