Chris Herring was taking his daughters to hunt on his land off of East Lindsey Ferry Road the Friday before Thanksgiving when he noticed a foul smell.
A ditch running across his property, which is typically dry, was full of rushing dark brown water, he said.
“It was very, very sulfer-ish,” Herring told The Dispatch on Wednesday. “It smelled like rotten eggs.”
While Herring, whose family has owned the land for nearly two decades, didn’t know what was going on at the time, he knew something was wrong.
On Nov. 25, Herring reported the issue to the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality.
By the next day, Herring said, he saw the dead fish.
He estimates he saw 4,000 to 5,000 dead fish along a seven-mile stretch of Magowah Creek that runs through his property and adjoining properties to the east.
“Thousands of fish,” Herring said. “We dipped 200 out of one hole.”
The Dispatch has examined photos of dark water and dead fish along the banks of a creek that Herring said were taken on his and his neighbors’ properties.
Herring said he met Nov. 26 with representatives of MDEQ and International Paper, which operates a paper mill immediately south of Herring’s property.
MDEQ Communications Director Jan Schaefer told The Dispatch in an email Tuesday that treated wastewater from a holding pond at the Columbus IP mill was accidentally discharged to Magowah Creek before flowing eastward into the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway.
“The facility estimates close to eight million gallons of treated wastewater was discharged to their stormwater outfall at Magowah Creek which is not their permitted discharge location for treated wastewater,” Shaefer wrote. “MDEQ is finalizing our investigative report with sampling results and anticipates an enforcement action to follow the completion of the report.”
Eight million gallons is the equivalent of approximately 400 swimming pools.
How it happened
In a letter sent Dec. 2 to MDEQ, International Paper Environmental Manager Chris Ford confirmed effluent was mistakenly discharged through a stormwater outfall for nearly three days.
Effluent is liquid waste or sewage discharged from factories or other facilities into a river or the sea. The International Paper mill treats its effluent to dilute pollutants before it is discharged.
Ford wrote that while unlocking a pump for treated effluent on Nov. 21, a water operator and two other employees mistakenly opened a valve leading to a holding pond that was not in service at the time. Another valve, which typically allows the pond to release rainwater when it is not in service, was open at the time, allowing the treated effluent to discharge offsite.
The “unanticipated discharge” was discovered at about 1 p.m. Nov. 24, Ford writes, and IP employees immediately shut the pumps off and closed the valve to the holding pond. Ford writes that he spoke with representatives with MDEQ and Mississippi Emergency Management Agency shortly after the discovery. A MEMA representative told Ford to follow up with the mill’s compliance officer the following day, Ford wrote, since the “treated effluent posed no harm to the environment.”
“Environmental technicians took samples of the treated effluent at the location that it left the property,” Ford wrote. “All results were below the Mill’s (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) permit limits.”
NPDES is a permit program that regulates sources of pollution, like industrial facilities and wastewater treatment plants, that discharge pollutants into the nation’s waters.
These sources of pollution are required to obtain permits that limit the amount of pollutants they can release so that they pose no danger to the public.
According to International Paper’s NPDES permits, the paper mill is permitted to discharge wastewater into the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, so long as it keeps the total suspended solids, biochemical oxygen demand, and other pollutants in the wastewater below certain concentrations per liter. Its permits also limit the total of each pollutant the mill can discharge per day.
International Paper is also permitted to discharge stormwater and non-process wastewater, which contains little to no contaminants, into a tributary of Cedar Creek, which is south of the mill.
NPDES also issued a separate permit to the Columbus mill, which allows it to discharge stormwater into a tributary of Magowah Creek.
That permit does not include wastewater.
International Paper’s response
In his letter, Ford wrote steps the Columbus mill has discussed to ensure the bypass does not happen again, including locking valves on the holding pond, labeling and inspecting all treated effluent valves, reviewing the incident with team members, retraining utilities outside water technicians and installing and locking a valve at the holding pond’s discharge side, which will always stay closed, except when it is draining rainwater.
Kellum Hawk, communications and public affairs manager for the Columbus mill, told The Dispatch in an email Wednesday the discharge met the mill’s permitted standards.
“International Paper has been working with MDEQ regarding this event,” Hawk said. “We have confirmed to MDEQ that the discharged water had been treated and complied with all applicable requirements, posing no threat to human health or the environment. Our top priority remains the safety and well-being of our employees, our community, and the environment.”
But Herring still expressed concerns for the ecosystem in the area, since his land is both a certified tree farm under the sustainable forestry initiative and a wildlife management area, along with being a legacy farm for his family. With the dead fish he saw on his property, he said, he is waiting for results from MDEQ’s testing to know what comes next.
“It was a shock to us,” Herring said. “We don’t know how long it’s going to stay. We don’t have a clue. We didn’t ask for it. We are optimistic that they were upfront with us, but it just (doesn’t) look like it. We don’t know. We’ll know more when (MDEQ) gets through with their investigation.”
Schaefer said the investigation is still considered a matter of open enforcement, limiting the comments the department can make. But a resolution may be on its way.
“MDEQ is finalizing our investigative report with sampling results and anticipates an enforcement action to follow the completion of the report,” Schaefer said.
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You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 28 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.
