Planned pulp plant possible polluter

Jan 24, 2002
Leah Bower

Baltic Pulp - a joint project between timber companies Sodra and Metsaliitto of Sweden and the Latvian state - is now trying to head off controversy over the environmental impact of a pulp mill the company hopes to build in Jekabpils county.

"There is no reason to be worried," said Jukka Laitinen, managing director of Baltic Pulp. "When the environmental assessment is made we will see. The people will see."

Already the company has weathered storms over the secrecy surrounding negotiations between the Swedish companies and Latvia, the proposed source of timber supplies and impending construction of a competing plant in Estonia.

The mill would bring an investment of 1 billion euros ($884.95 million) into Latvia and is expected to boost the national gross domestic product by 3 percent when it opens in 2005.

Following a series of public hearings, residents of the region are eyeing the plant's possible environmental impact on the Daugava River.

"Right now the main concern for the public and journalists is organic chlorine compounds and their toxic byproducts," said Janis Avotins, director of the environmental impact assessment state bureau, a division of the Environment Ministry.

Several of Baltic Pulp's proposed bleaching processes in pulp-making involve chlorine dioxide, which can create pollutants.

Because the company plans to use and then return water to the Daugava River - which provides drinking water for much of the country - some people are worried.

At least one of Baltic Pulp's plans, however, incorporates a chlorine-free bleaching process, Avotins said.

Laitinen maintains the new pulp mill will use the same water purification technology used in Sweden and Finland.

At Finland's Aanekoski pulp mill, which uses the same technology planned for the Jekabpils plant, waste water is returned to Paijanne Lake which provides drinking water for nearby Helsinki.

"Maybe there have been older pulp mills in Latvia in the past and people recall that," Laitinen said of the controversy over the proposed plant. "Still, I'm not worried this will slow construction."

But for now the bureau can't say much about either side until the results of the draft environmental impact assessment are released in autumn 2002.

Meanwhile Rigas Water has also put together a team of experts, who have been working for the past four months to evaluate the effects the mill would have on drinking water supplies.

Their report is not yet completed either.

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