Updated 9:21 a.m. Nov. 4, 2024
By Robert Tomlinson
News Director
WHITE PIGEON — A local paper mill has been sued by the Michigan Attorney General’s Office for allegedly discharging PFAS-contaminated wastewater into the White Pigeon River.
The lawsuit, filed Friday in Ingham County Circuit Court, alleges that Ox Paperboard WP LLC and White Pigeon Mills LLC – collectively operating as Ox Paperboard – has had unauthorized wastewater discharges into the river that resulted in the release of hazardous substances, including PFAS, into the environment.
According to the Attorney General’s Office, since June 2020, the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy (EGLE) has issued seven violation notices to the company for improperly discharging PFAS-contaminated wastewater, and has allegedly continued to do so despite the repeated notices. In addition, the lawsuit alleges the company has further failed to properly close wastewater lagoons on their River Street property.
Ox Paperboard has owned the paper mill site since June 2020, and prior to 2019 was owned by the Artistic Carton Company. That company was allegedly issued a groundwater discharge permit that was set to expire in December 2019, according to the lawsuit, and was extended by EGLE because it received a permit reissuance application in April of that year. In August 2019, an assessment of the property found the presence of PFAS in 19 groundwater monitoring wells.
The first notice, according to the lawsuit, was on June 25, 2020, and was issued to Graphic Packaging International (GPI), who owned the site at the time, and documented “noncompliance” with Michigan’s Part 31 law and the Industrial Storm Water Code of Conduct, listing a number of environmental issues observed during a March 9, 2020 inspection. Ox Paperboard was aware of the violation, the lawsuit states, when they purchased the site from GPI on June 29, 2020.
In August of 2020, the lawsuit states that Ox “improperly diverted wastewater” during maintenance of a clarifier, which resulted in an unauthorized discharge into the property’s settling basins. The company, according to the lawsuit, estimated there were 800,000 gallons of water and raw paper stock discharged into that basin during this incident. This led to a violation issued on Oct. 8, 2020. The violation stated the discharge was “intentional,” confirmed that Ox “did not have a permit to discharge wastewater to groundwater,” and directed the company to take “immediate action” to achieve and maintain compliance with state laws.
The lawsuit states the actions the company took after that discharge “did not achieve compliance.”
On March 29, 2021, the state was notified that Ox had discharged 1,277 gallons of wastewater from a clarifier into the White Pigeon River, and another violation notice was issued. The lawsuit states that after this occurrence, they took initial action to address the violations, including installing a water level sensor, but those actions, the state said, were “insufficient to maintain compliance” with Part 31.
The fourth violation notice was issued on Oct. 13, 2021 after high concentrations of Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) and perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), part of the same family of PFAS, were found in well samples.
More unauthorized discharges, according to the lawsuit, occurred on Jan. 30, 2022 and Sept. 7, 2022, which led to a fifth violation notice on Oct. 28, 2022. The fifth violation notice also confirmed that PFOS was detected in surface water downstream of the unauthorized discharges.
On April 5, 2023, the company had a rupture in its clarifier, which discharged 14,136 gallons of process wastewater to the ground and the river, and after an inspection and water sampling afterward, led to the sixth violation notice, issued on June 8, 2023.
Through this time, Ox Paperboard had been working on a lagoon closure plan, which started with a draft plan submitted back on Sept. 30, 2020. However, all of the drafts submitted since that time, according to the lawsuit, were determined by EGLE to be “inadequate.” EGLE reportedly provided “detailed information” on what was required in a lagoon closure plan to try to assist Ox.
On Aug. 29, 2023, EGLE informed Ox via a written letter that their August 2022 revised lagoon closure plan was insufficient, because the plan “lacked significant detail including disposal methods for the lagoon water, sludges, and any residual soils that may be contaminated due to lagoon operations.”
The seventh violation notice was issued on Dec. 20, 2023, which confirmed that Ox had not submitted a new revised lagoon closure plan by the Oct. 30, 2023 deadline, nor before Dec. 20. The lawsuit alleged the violations “are continuing.”
As of today, the lawsuit alleges that Ox has still “failed to submit a lagoon closure plan acceptable to the State,” and has not addressed all of the violations in the notices.
“EGLE has determined that Ox Paperboard’s actions and inactions described above have posed and continue to pose an imminent and substantial endangerment to the public health, safety, or welfare, or of the environment,” the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit seeks proper closure of the wastewater lagoons, an end to Ox Paperboard’s unauthorized discharges to the waters of the state, and civil fines, costs, and damages associated with the violations.
“As Attorney General, I have prioritized protecting Michigan’s environment and holding polluters accountable,” Attorney General Dana Nessel said in a statement. “When companies operating in Michigan fail to respect our laws and our communities, our Department will not hesitate to use its full authority under the law to defend our public health and our natural resources. It is unacceptable for companies like Ox Paperboard to pollute Michigan’s precious water and put the health and safety of Michigan families at risk.”
In a statement Saturday, Ox Industries President/CEO Kevin Hayward noted the multiple closure plans they have presented to EGLE, and claimed that they have not received support from EGLE or state officials on “a path that would satisfy” the state.
“The last site assessment was done by the previous owners of the site in 2020. Since that time and under Ox ownership, Ox has separated the old settlement ponds and lagoon from the paper making process and has a closed loop water system with a zero discharge to public waterways posing no danger to the local community and it’s employees. All old settlement ponds are empty and have not been in use at OX. Ox Industries purchased the closed paper mill in the summer of 2020 and saved 75 jobs and invested in the community to bring the paper mill back into operation. We stand behind our great team in White Pigeon and the community,” Hayward said in a statement. “We are eager to find a solution that meets EGLE and the state of Michigan’s requirements to clean up the site. We feel that the AG’s suit reads more like a political flyer than trying to help solve the problem which could put good paying jobs at risk.”
The full lawsuit can be found on the State of Michigan website.
Robert Tomlinson can be reached at 279-7488 or robert@wilcoxnewspapers.com.
