Pollution Pipeline and the St. John's River (Jacksonville, University: construction, university)

[lokahi]

I just saw this on First Coast News. I wanted to share it with you if you haven't gotten a chance to see it.

Jacksonville.com (http://news.jacksonville.com/justin/2008/08/06/peyton-well-fight-pollution-pipeline/ - broken link)

[riveree]

Thanks Lokahi .

Has anyone smelled GP's paper plant?

I drive past GP's "Bird Sanctuary" when I'm heading out to the country, and it stinks!

Georgia Pacific/Palatka need to keep their stink to themselves !

[ajscharnke]

Please look into the facts about the pipeline:

Cleaner St. Johns River - Georgia Pacific

In reality, 99.5% of pollution in the St. Johns comes from other sources- one large contributor is fertilizer runoff from area farms.

Even with $200 million worth of quality improvements to the discharge water, the fact is that the volumetric flow rate of the water in Rice Creek is simply insufficient.

The pipeline is not being built to dump more pollutants into the water, it is being built to ensure that all of the water in the area is well above government standards. The EPA and government set standards for a reason- the standards allow for objective decisions to be made based on what has been predetermined to be acceptable water quality levels.

[riveree]

Originally Posted by ajscharnke

Please look into the facts about the pipeline:

Cleaner St. Johns River - Georgia Pacific

In reality, 99.5% of pollution in the St. Johns comes from other sources- one large contributor is fertilizer runoff from area farms.

Even with $200 million worth of quality improvements to the discharge water, the fact is that the volumetric flow rate of the water in Rice Creek is simply insufficient.

The pipeline is not being built to dump more pollutants into the water, it is being built to ensure that all of the water in the area is well above government standards. The EPA and government set standards for a reason- the standards allow for objective decisions to be made based on what has been predetermined to be acceptable water quality levels.

"Fertilizer" as in "Nitrogen"?

AJ, your link did not come through, but it looks like you're suggesting we get the facts from Georgia-Pacific themselves? A for-profit corporation?

From the link Lokahi provided:

Georgia-Pacific’s mill outside Palatka said last month it plans to build the four-mile pipeline because it can’t clean its wastewater enough to meet state water-quality standards in Rice Creek, where it discharges now.

Peyton wrote to Gov. Charlie Crist today, asking his office to reexamine whether the pipeline is needed. Peyton listed concerns about the pipeline’s environmental impacts....

Environmental groups have bitterly opposed the pipeline plan since the 1990s and sued once to stop it....

Jacksonville.com (http://news.jacksonville.com/justin/2008/08/06/peyton-well-fight-pollution-pipeline/ - broken link)

From Wikipedia (not always 100% credible, but a good starting point):

Environmental record

Based on year 2000 data,[3] researchers at the Political Economy Research Institute of the University of Massachusetts named Georgia-Pacific as the fifteenth-largest corporate producer of air pollution in the United States. In that year, Georgia-Pacific facilities released more than 22,000,000 pounds of toxic chemicals into the air.[4] Georgia-Pacific has also been linked to some of the United States' worst toxic waste sites...

Georgia-Pacific - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

From the Saint John's Riverkeeper Blog:

Riverkeeper opposes the construction of this pipeline. We believe the mill should not be able to move its pollution from Rice Creek to the River and the mill should do more to reduce its impacts from the environment. GP is the second largest source of nitrogen in the lower St. Johns discharging over 200,000 lbs/year. Nitrogen is the cause of the Green Monster. The Mill’s pollution also has such an impact on the dissolved oxygen levels in Rice Creek that the mill has to inject liquid oxygen into its waste stream. There are still byproducts of the mill’s bleaching process that have been shown to cause impacts to fish reproduction processes.

St. Johns Riverkeeper: Pollution Pipeline


No, Georgia-Pacific is not going to convince me that this is a "good" thing .

[ajscharnke]

Don't get me wrong- nobody wants pollution.

All that I'm saying is that when you drive your car everyday, it creates pollution but at a level less than what is mandated by government standards. This is the same situation. The government has set standards for wastewater and GP is working with the government to meet those standards as agreed upon years ago.

[riveree]

Originally Posted by ajscharnke

Don't get me wrong- nobody wants pollution.

All that I'm saying is that when you drive your car everyday, it creates pollution but at a level less than what is mandated by government standards. This is the same situation. The government has set standards for wastewater and GP is working with the government to meet those standards as agreed upon years ago.

The government sets some pretty loose standards, IMO. Some would even say that our government works for the corporations .

As I understood it, GP was saying they were not able to reach the government standards and they want this pipeline in order to attempt to comply. Will it actually work? who knows?

Water is too precious a commodity and we're starting to feel the crunch here in NEFL. I think we need a different approach, it's just not business as usual anymore and these corporations need to do a better job of running a cleaner operation, not just ask for more places to dump their garbage.