Forest Products Industry Will Spend $300 million on Capital Projects for EPA MACT II Compliance

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The following is an advisory by Industrialinfo.com (Industrial Information Resources, Inc; Houston, Texas). Environmental compliance has cost the pulp and paper industry more than $2 billion dollars over the last three years. Today, companies are gearing up for another round of environmental spending that will carry an estimated $300 million price tag over the next three years. This round of spending will address the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's maximum achievable control technology (MACT) II standard, which calls for controlling hazardous air pollutants (HAP's) from chemical recovery combustion sources in pulp and paper mills.

MACT II rules were proposed in 1998 and promulgated in early 2001. The industry has three years to comply with the new standards. Mills that utilize the kraft and soda pulping processes or the sulfite pulping process are subject to compliance. Chemical recovery combustion sources found in mills are smelt dissolving tanks, black liquor recovery boilers and lime kilns.

Compliance in the simplest form can be achieved by improving monitoring and reporting of operational procedures. Most mills will require capital investments for upgrades to existing equipment or to add new emission monitoring devices and environmental control equipment. In some instances, where the combustion sources are old and inefficient, it may be more beneficial to the mill to replace the source of combustion.

Over the last twelve months, Industrialinfo.com has tracked proposed capital projects that specifically address MACT II standards. Randy Godet, Pulp and Paper Group Manager at Industrialinfo.com, states that `MACT II will result in millions of dollars of orders for new scrubbers, electrostatic precipitators and similar control devices.`