The price of paper

Coastal communities around the world contend with the toxic legacies of pulp and paper mills.

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Opened in 1957, this pulp and paper mill in Crofton, British Columbia—like many coastal mills around the world—leaves behind a legacy of toxic pollution in sediments and marine animals. Photo by Grant Callegari

The Crofton pulp and paper mill—one of the biggest in Canada—occupies a sprawling site carved out of the coastal Douglas fir forests on the east side of Vancouver Island, British Columbia. The mill’s commanding view of the Salish Sea, which separates the island from the mainland, is filtered through a bustling industrial lens. Belching stacks reach fist-straight for the clouds while conveyor-belt tongues transfer woodchips into a mechanical mouth to be shredded, laced with chemicals, and doused with water as they’re converted into pulp and paper.

It’s the sort of industrial complex that naturally draws unfavorable attention. Opened in 1957, Crofton mill has survived more than its share of public protests over pollution and disagreeable odors. Canadian rock legends Randy Bachman and Neil Young, and a host of other artists, have campaigned against the mill. In 2004, Bachman, then a resident of Saltspring Island, vowed to never rest until the mill closed. He now lives beyond sniffing distance in the greater Victoria area in British Columbia. And “Takin’ Care of Business” could very well be the mill’s victory song.The managers of Crofton mill acknowledge the pulp sector’s checkered record on pollution, but say that has changed for the better in recent decades. The mill has undergone extensive upgrades and switched its bleaching process so that the nastiest and most long-lasting pollutants no longer threaten the marine food chain. Locals report a cleaner environment, including a noticeable reduction in odors and particulate matter that once fell so heavily the mill installed a free vehicle-rinse station for employees and the community. You can still find it in operation today, a relic of a bygone era in a corner of the mill’s parking lot.

“There’s no question there are some dark chapters in the history of this sector in British Columbia,” says Graham Kissack, vice president of environment, health, safety, and communications for Paper Excellence Canada, which purchased the Crofton mill in 2019. “But I think the story today is very different from 30 years ago.”Still, pollution continues to challenge the industry and the behemoth Crofton mill exemplifies the problems, especially of aging facilities.Government legislators determine how much air and water pollution any given mill is permitted to emit. When mills screw up in British Columbia, the province employs a policy of progressive sanctions to encourage compliance. Technically, under the Environmental Management Act, that means taking into consideration protection of the environment and human health.

But it would be naive to think that in Canada and elsewhere over the decades there has not been a balancing act between good-paying mill jobs and tax revenue versus environmental protection.

A review of British Columbia’s Natural Resources Compliance and Enforcement Database for the first eight months of 2022 reveals that nine pulp mills—including Crofton—have been cited by the province for a slew of violations ranging from unauthorized air and water emissions to failing to inform the province of problems on a timely basis.

Currently, there are 13 pulp mills operating in British Columbia.

A research paper by Dalhousie University and the Nova Scotia Department of Environment and Climate Change, also published in 2022, concluded that the pulp and paper industry is a major contributor to water and air pollution globally and an intensive consumer of energy.

And an analysis of the National Pollutant Release Inventory—a federal database compiled by Environment and Climate Change Canada—shows that the pulp and paper sector claimed seven of the top 10 spots on a federal list of industrial water polluters in British Columbia in 2018 and four of the top 10 spots for air pollutants.

“Wow, those are astonishing statistics,” says Tony Walker, an associate professor in the School for Resource and Environmental Studies at Dalhousie. “You don’t want to be atop the leader board for those kind of emissions.”

The industry has faced some tough economic challenges, for example a sharp decline in newsprint business as newspapers across North America close, downsize, or shift to digital. Crofton responded by producing not just paper but packaging-grade products, including brown bags for fast-food outlets—the sort of items people use every day and often prefer to plastic.

“There’s a big shift in making pulp and paper mills more diversified,” says professor Orlando Rojas, scientific director of the BioProducts Institute at the University of British Columbia (UBC). “This is the way we’re going in the future.”

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