For the first 50 to 60 years
the paper mills in Kalamazoo made paper products from virgin
paper pulp. Starting in the 1950's, the mills begin to recycle
waste paper for stock (this is sometimes called "de-inked pulp"). Mixed in with this waste paper was
carbonless copy paper, often called NCR
(No Carbon Required) paper. This paper was sold by the NCR
(National Cash Register)
corporation. Between at least 1957 and 1971
it contained PCBs as part of the ink carrier
(the carrier is the fluid the ink is dissolved in). The PCBs
themselves were manufactured by Monsanto.
Carbonless copy paper was never manufactured in Kalamazoo. PCBs
were present in wastewater solely from the recycling process,
which included de-inking. The
suspended particles in the paper mill waste water, primarily cellulose and
clay, absorbed or contained high concentrations of PCBs. Settling lagoons
were created to trap most of these suspended
particles. The clarified water from the lagoons was discharged into Portage Creek.
The 1967 map below shows the
settling lagoons (called waste disposal ponds on the map) where
the PCB-contaminated material was sent to. The Bryant Mill
lagoons are to the north and west of Portage Creek. The single
Monarch Mill lagoon is to the south and east of the creek. The
circles in that area are clarifiers, one of which still stands.
Click here for some 2011 photos of the
superfund
landfill at the Bryant Mill site
The legacy of this practice
was a huge amount of PCB-containing material in the Monarch and Bryant lagoons
and the Bryant Mill Pond. These came primarily from the
de-inking operations in Bryant Mill A. PCBs also traveled along Portage Creek
and into the Kalamazoo River. MDEQ estimates that the area
between the Monarch and Bryant Mill mill sites contains over 110,000
pounds of PCBs and has over 8 million cubic yards of
contaminated material.
Allied
Paper was held legally responsible for cleanup of the lagoons
and ponds used by the Monarch and Bryant Mills. Along with
Georgia Pacific it was held legally responsible for the cleanup
of PCBs in the Kalamazoo River.
The Bryant Mill was leased
by Allied Paper in 1956 for 10 years from the St. Regis Paper Co
and purchased outright in 1960. Allied had owned the Monarch
Mill since its formation in 1922. The Allied Paper Corporation was bought by the
Smith-Corona-Marchant (SCM) Corporation in 1967 and became the
paper-making division of that entity. Then in the late 1980's,
SCM was bought by Hanson PLC, a British conglomerate. In 1988,
the Allied Paper Bryant Mill was sold to Michael Gallenberger,
who formed a company called Performance Papers. However, the
liability for the cleanup of Portage Creek and the Kalamazoo
River stayed with Hanson PLC.
In 1996, Hanson split and the
liability was transferred to a brand -new company named Millennium
Chemical. In 1997, Millennium merged with Lyondell and then in
2007 Lyondell merged with Basell to become LyondellBasell,
headquartered in the Netherlands. Cleanup of sediment in the
Kalamazoo River at
Plainwell and Otsego has been accomplished, partly funded by
LyondellBasell. In early 2009 LyondellBasell went
bankrupt and as part of a 2010 bankruptcy agreement $103 million
has been allocated for the Kalamazoo River Superfund Site. $50
million of this money is to fund a private trust that will own
the landfill between the
Bryant-Monarch Mill sites and clean it up.
There is a great deal of
information available online about the cleanup efforts, since
activities have been ongoing since 1993. The March 2008 report
prepared for MDEQ by Camp Dresser and McKee Inc contains a lot
of analytical information about the Bryant-Monarch Superfund
Site. This was followed by a 2009 feasibility study. Here's a
link to the US EPA Home Page for the cleanup project. The
"Site Documents and Data" link on that page will take you to all
the published information available. The specific cleanup
plan has not yet been selected.