Bwick News: Glynn Env. Coal. takes on numerous odor complaints and EPD
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EPD odor study finds no responsible party while control measures continue to evolve
- 0The complaints began coming in larger than normal volumes as early as late 2020.
“I would like to file an official complaint regarding the air quality where I live,” one woman who lives on Willow Avenue in Brunswick told the Georgia Department of Natural Resources’ Environmental Protection Division. “There is a foul smell in the air akin to a dead rat or boiled cabbage. This odor has been getting more frequent and worse this past year.”
Over the next few years, the complaints continued. Some people complained only of a periodic foul odor. Others complained of coughing, burning eyes and nausea when the air became especially stinky.
“My daughter woke me up at 5 a.m. coughing and said she couldn’t sleep because of the smell,” a man living in Old Town Brunswick said in January 2022. “I know this can’t be healthy for us and it won’t be a good look when people, including us, start selling their homes to move further away. We love our home downtown but not more than our health.”
Some people blamed specific industries or sites in Brunswick and Glynn County for what they were smelling.
“I went for a walk in the morning, and I had to go back because I was coughing and nauseous due to the chemical stench in the air,” a woman from Marshes of Mackay said in early 2023. “What the heck is going on at Georgia-Pacific today (that’s)...making us sick?”
The EPD heard all of the complaints and investigated the air quality around three main sites on which people blamed the foul odors — the Academy Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant, Georgia-Pacific’s Brunswick Cellulose pulp mill and the now-closed Pinova rosin plant.
Pinova ceased operating following an April 15, 2023, fire that crippled the plant and eventually led to its closure in June.
The EPD’s odor investigations that began in 2020 attempted to answer the woman’s question about what was going on at local industries, although perhaps not in the manner she expected. Things were business as usual at the wastewater plant and the pulp mill, the EPD said.
“In short, there has been no enforcement action issued because there was no definitive proof found of a responsible party,” Sara Lips, director of communications and community engagement for the EPD, told The News about the results of the study. “Additionally, none of the facilities regulated by EPD in the area violated any conditions in their permit or the rules that would have contributed to odors.”
THE INVESTIGATIONS
The EPD summarized its findings in a presentation in March that included details about its methods to track from where the odors were emanating.
There were 289 out of 361 odor complaints between Nov. 23, 2020, and Nov. 30, 2023, that included the information required to create what the EPD calls back trajectories. To trace the odors backward to their sources, the folks studying the air need the date of the olfactory offense, the time and the specific location. They then take into account wind speeds and wind directions provided by meteorological data and plug it all into a formula that gives them an idea of where it may have originated.
Out of the 289 traceable complaints during that time, 180 of them, or 62.3%, were reported as occurring before 9 a.m. Most of those occurred on Tuesday and Sunday, a summary of the findings said.
Out of the 289, 216, or 74.7%, of the back trajectories tracked through a 1-mile buffer zone around the wastewater plant and the pulp mill, the investigations showed. More than 67% of those, 146 out of the 216, were reported as occurring before 9 a.m., on Tuesdays and Saturdays and during the colder months of November to January.
A memo about the results dated April 9 of this year also said that 31.6% of the back trajectories that were tracked passed over either the pulp mill or the Academy Creek wastewater plant.
The memo also noted that the number of complaints has diminished since the initial barrage in late 2020. From December 2020 to November 2021, there were 182 complaints. The following year, from December 2021 to November 2022, there were 67 complaints and 40 from December 2022 to November 2023.
The number of complaints during those time periods that could be tracked as passing over the mill and treatment plant, as well as those that passed through the 1-mile buffer zone, also decreased, the memo said.
WHAT’S NEXT
With Pinova no longer operating and without any permit or rule violations and no emissions exceedances at the pulp mill or Academy Creek during the period studied, the EPD did not place any blame on local operations for producing the foul odor reported by residents. There were also no violations to enforce.
That was not a surprise to Rachael Thompson, executive director of Glynn Environmental Coalition, who told The News in January 2021 that air quality studies rarely lead to a responsible party or enforcement action to correct the problem. That is because the way the state’s laws work with the federal Clean Air Act, which places limits on polluting emissions from industrial operations. Some states have stricter rules than the federal law dictates, leading to permits and regulations that more closely monitor chemicals that get into the air and potentially degrade air quality.
“We don’t really have that in Georgia,” Thompson said. “So...for a community like Brunswick, when people experience bad air quality and the state investigates and all the facilities are in compliance, the state laws are allowing bad air quality to exist.”
The EPD faces challenges collecting quality data as well, she said. Following up on complaints of foul air in the days after they are reported does not always provide a full picture of what the complainant may have been smelling. That makes it difficult to pinpoint the chemical makeup of what may have been causing the odor, for example.
Foul odors in the air are connected to some form of pollutant, Thompson said. But without the proper data, she, like the EPD, isn’t willing to point a finger at one particular operation.
“We do know that we have these two relatively odorous industries close to each other, but the state doesn’t have the empirical evidence to point to what is causing these issues,” Thompson said.
The coalition wants to find out who or what is causing the odors that waft through the community. It also wants to know what is in it.
“We feel like the more people submit complaints, the more it pushes the state to investigate and keep a focus on the industries,” Thompson said. “As long as our community is experiencing impaired air, it could be the result of something industries have done that is not in compliance with the law.”
The coalition is also planning to do its part collecting data. It is in line to receive an Environmental Justice Collaborative Problem Solving Program grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The grant will provide the funding necessary to create a network of citizen scientists armed with air monitoring equipment and trained to use it.
“In addition to filing a complaint, the individuals would have the tools to take a sample of the air at that moment,” Thompson said.
But getting the grant money from the EPA has its own set of bureaucratic hoops through which to jump. Thompson had hoped to have the program off the ground by March. The coalition, however, is still in the process of getting past the barriers to get the grant awarded.
“I think it says a lot about the work that still needs to be done to alleviate red tape and bureaucracy,” Thompson said.
Until then, she and her staff will continue to monitor the EPD’s complaint investigations and facilitate the public in making them. The organization has an air quality reporting form available on its website at glynnenvironmental.org/airquality that people can use to report air quality issues to the EPD and to local elected officials.
HOW ODOR IS CONTROLLED
The two primary subjects considered in the EPDs investigations were Brunswick Cellulose and the Academy Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant. Both were mentioned specifically in complaints frequently.
Pinova was mentioned as well, but complaints continued to come in to EPD after it ceased operations, so tracking efforts focused on the mill and the treatment plant.
Both were involved at different points with the investigations.
The pulp mill voluntarily uses air monitors at the facility, including at the T Street gate, which is adjacent to the sewer commission’s wastewater plant and near the mill’s own wastewater treatment area. The mill provided information to the EPD during investigations that included air monitoring data that mostly showed things operating as normal.
Occasionally things weren’t. At one point during the investigations, on Feb. 21, 2023, the EPD detected higher than normal hydrogen sulfide readings near the T Street gate. In response, the pulp mill explained that in the days prior, maintenance to an oxygen compressor had lowered supplemental oxygen in its O2 delignification system and at wastewater treatment injection points. The lower oxygen could have contributed to stronger odors, the mill representatives conceded.
The issue was fixed quickly and the mill representative told the EPD the hydrogen sulfide levels lowered to normal again.
The constant monitoring of chemical levels is part of the constant effort to diminish smells coming from the plant, said C.J. Drake, spokesperson for Brunswick Cellulose.
“We strive to be a good neighbor in the community where we have operated for 86 years,” Drake said. “Every day we must earn and never take for granted the right to do business here. To that end, we have invested much effort in odor mitigation practices and monitoring over the last several years.”
A memo in February written by the EPD noted that Brunswick Cellulose environmental team leader Stephanie King explained that the facility was installing a brownstock process to replace an existing system that would reduce emissions and be more sustainable. The project was expected to be done in 2024, the memo said.
King also shared ongoing monitoring data with EPD and said there had been no trends of exceedances from the stacks or the hydrogen sulfide monitors.
Drake told The News this week that odor control is part of every part of mill operations.
“One example of that is systematically dredging our wastewater treatment ponds to keep them in a healthy state, which helps control odors,” he said.
The mill also takes odor complaints seriously, Drake said.
“We thoroughly investigate every odor complaint and report our findings to state regulators,” he said. “We also work closely with our community partners to understand whether other sources of odor could exist in the surrounding community. These efforts have helped drive a dramatic decline in odor complaints brought to our attention. In fact, we have recorded a 97 percent reduction in the number of complaints in the past three years, from 251 in 2021 to seven so far this year. The Brunswick Cellulose environmental team, led by Stephanie King, deserves much of the credit for these improvements.”
The Brunswick-Glynn County Joint Water and Sewer Commission also takes complaints and odor control seriously, said Executive Director Andrew Burroughs. He personally oversaw installation of a new odor control tower in 2022 that he said has worked well.
The system includes odor control covers close to the water levels at the influence of sewage entering the plant and uses a tall tower that uses bacteria to consume odor-causing particles.
“The air that we collect is pumped into the tower,” Burroughs said. “At times we do have to remove the covers for maintenance, so at that point, not all the air is being contained. But it has been highly effective since it came online.”
He is aware that wastewater treatment is an odorous endeavor and that localized odors may from time to time be detectable around the plant. That is why he would like to eventually have similar odor control devices installed at all the lift stations in the county to diminish odor throughout the entire process.
“Our goal is that you never have to think about us,” Burroughs said.
Michael Hall