MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Pulp mills: Human Rights group blasts IFC and pollution experts

Botnia-Orion pulp mills under construction

The construction of a pulp mill in Uruguay along a river shared with Argentina has turned into an acrimonious spiraling contention between the neighboring countries particularly because of the alleged pollution impact of such an industry.

Dr Wayne Dwernychuk, who was involved, --under contract from the World Bank?s International Finance Corporation--, in the environmental impact assessments of the pulp mills along the river Uruguay (Hatfield Report), after finalizing his relation with IFC, first wrote a report on the issue and later an open letter criticizing Argentine authorities (hypocritical) attitude and misleading information, both of which were published in the Mercopresssite. Dr. Dwernychuk?s letter received an open reply by Jorge Daniel Taillant from the Argentine Center for Human Rights and Environment, CEDHA, who rebukes the Canadian expert from the ?social license? angle underscoring IFC ignored the ?broad public support? such projects are required to comply with. In the case of the Botnia-Orion plant, according to Mr. Taillant tens of thousands, on both sides of the river, actually marched repeatedly against the construction of the pulp mill. Following are Mr. Taillant?s letter; Dr. Dwernychuk?s reply and another opinion from a Canadian pulp mills expert, James Mc Cubbin who basically sides with Dr. Dwernychuk and the Argentine Academy of Engineering (whose report was also published in the Mercopress site). Open letter to Dr. Wayne Dwernychuk from Jorge Daniel Taillant of CEDHA Mr. Dwernychuk, Your article entitled Argentina?s Environmental Hypocrisy, which appeared in the Latin Business Chronicle (and Mercopress) not only fails to intelligently understand the issues revolving Botnia?s illegal pulp mill venture in Uruguay, it also, with respect to Argentina?s political stance on its own environmental situation, [is] anachronistic and false. Perhaps you should read up a bit on what Argentina is doing lately with its pulp mill sector and with the Matanza Riachuelo River Basin. You are clearly not up to date on current affairs. It is sad that you would make such shortsighted passing comments about which you clearly know nothing about. In your ignorance, you are as guilty as your own critique regarding the feeding of erroneous information to the public. Coming from a member of an IFC-financed consulting group (Hatfield), your opinion that Argentines are ?so ignorant? is not only culturally inappropriate; it is culturally imperialistic and fails to make an informed and integral analysis of the Botnia and the IFC?s development fiasco. Considering you are a foreign consultant that has only been hired to review a technical industry profile of a projected pulp mill, your task is quite limited, and your perception of the issues, as is obvious from your statements, can only also be as limited. To draw such far reaching and extremely critical (and uninformed) conclusions about several years of an evolving problem, from this myopic industry standpoint on merely the technical aspect of a mill design, is assuming and unprofessional. This conflict is not merely about whether or not Botnia today meets industry standards. On April 20, 2005, IFC lied to their board of directors about the Botnia Orion project (or grossly misunderstood ? either way it is an unacceptable error) regarding public opinion about the ?social license? the IFC requires for Category A projects ? they said it enjoyed ?broad public support? ? go find the document, it?s still on their website- if you cannot find it, I can send you the link. Ten days later 50,000 concerned citizens (you would call them ?ignorant Argentines? ? although there were a great many Uruguayans present) marched peacefully to express their opposition to the investment. I wonder if an Argentine consultant called 50,000 Canadians expressing their democratic opinion ?ignorant?, what you might think about such an opinion? It is frankly rude and imperialistic. This 50,000 person march, I will point out, was the largest march ever against a World Bank project. It was followed by two additional marches of 120,000 and 130,000 people the following anniversaries of the first march. Contaminating industries, Mr. Dwernychuk - (and Pulp Mills is a Contaminating Industry as categorized by the World Bank), need to abide by strict procedural regulations. And this is not only about industry standards but also regarding community engagement and social license. IFC lays out clear such standards-they are called Performance Standards (I inform you that we have personally helped develop those standards, which is why we recognize clearly when they are violated), precisely to avoid the conflict they and Botnia have caused. Botnia, ENCE, and the IFC, failed to comply with those standards in step one. The rest was an escalating fiasco showing how not to move forward with an environmentally sensitive project. The fact that you?ve ?eventually proved? to comply with industry standards and technical specification --Botnia previously had not -- does not mean that you?ve done your community homework. This gap, along the way, made Botnia and IFC lose all credibility and critical local support for the investment. On policy violations, the CAO confirms our opinion. In fact, Hatfield, your employer, even confirms our opinion. Look at the complaint we filed to the CAO, and you will see that Hatfield concluded that Botnia was missing quite a bit of information, much of which had to do with precisely the issues we focused on in our complaint. The late provision of that information, combined with the great mismanagement, arrogance of the project sponsors, that refused even to give local stakeholders terms of engagement rules, led to the problem that we have today. It is not as you indicate in your unfortunate article, Argentina?s fault that we are where we are today. Botnia and the IFC failed to follow their own rules, and were completely insensitive to local opinion-they are to blame for this conflict. This case has turned out to be a great lesson for IFC and for international development finance generally. I would suggest you revisit your article, and if I were you, I?d publish a public apology to the thousands of local residents that have been offended and insulted by your narrow-minded and culturally imperialistic view. Nothing further, Jorge Daniel TaillantExecutive Director, Center for Human Rights and Environment (CEDHA), Buenos Aires, Argentina, www.cedha.org.ar Dr. Wayne Dwernychuk replies to Jorge Daniel Taillant of CEDHA.Mr. Taillant: Thank you for your efforts in providing me with an obviously thorough view of my submission, albeit from a wider perspective than my document was intended. Firstly, and of most significant note, is that my views were expressed on the basis of, and limited to, the 'environmental' impacts of the mill as they may relate to the river environment. Any topics related to the 'process', 'policy', 'community engagement', or socioeconomic issues involving governments and/or IFC to get to the present development stage, is not of my interest or expertise. I would have thought that was abundantly clear, if you had absorbed the context of what I had presented. I have studied the impact of pulp mills on river environments my entire 35-year career and have at least some idea of what events in these environments (biological, chemical and physical) will be affected by wastewater discharges from this industry. As an example, we have the Fraser River in British Columbia with three re-fitted ECF (Elemental Chlorine Free) pulp mills discharging more waste materials into the system at greater volume (three and one-half times greater) than the combined two mills that were originally planned at Fray Bentos. The treatment systems of the Fray Bentos mills were/are superior to the Fraser mills. The average flow of the Fraser is 1400 m3/s ... average flow of Rio Uruguay is 6000 m3/s. The dilution potential of Rio Uruguay greatly exceeds that of the Fraser. I have studied the system since the early 1970's and have found that impacts, overall, have been inconsequential with no effects on fish, benthos (perhaps some enrichment), salmon runs or tourist-related issues. I call upon this experience when looking at the Rio Uruguay situation. I firmly stand by my assertions that provided the mill operates according to 'engineering design specifications', the mill will not impact the environment, fisheries or tourism. Relating to other points you make, I wish to clarify/correct your impressions. Regarding the Riachuelo-Metanza Basin, it was reported in the press that, in fact, the situation in the Basin came to light when the Government of Argentina (GoA) initiated their review of the Fray Bentos mills. From this statement, I expressed my opinion that the people of Argentina are 'NOT so ignorant' that they would believe the GoA's rationale for ignoring the pollution problem there... I did not say the people of Argentina were 'ignorant' as you have intimated ... you are blatantly wrong on that point. I have more respect for the Argentine people than you grant me. On the issue of 'missing information', yes there were data gaps and requirements to upgrade the original impact statement. This was done to our satisfaction. Again, you introduce the 'process' by which supposed 'terms of engagement were not given to stakeholders'. I reiterate here, 'process/protocols' were not the subject of my document ... clearly my 'subject' appears to have escaped you. Perhaps you should re-read my document from my perspective and in the context it was written, rather that interject issues, perhaps related in the greater scheme of things, but not integral or pertinent to my assessment. Dr. Wayne Dwernychuk Sr. Environmental Scientist & Advisor Hatfield Consultants (Retired) West Vancouver, BC, Canada www.hatfieldgroup.com In support of Dr. Wayne Dwernychuk Letter from Neil McCubbin supporting arguments made by Dr. Wayne Dwernychuk on the Botnia paper mills in Uruguay. Having worked thorough the project as Dr. Dwernychuk's co-author, and followed subsequent publications, I am well acquainted with the Botnia project, but have no financial connection whatsoever with Botnia. I also support the comments by the Argentinean Academy of Engineering. Specifically, I agree that suitable monitoring of the final construction and operation of the mill is appropriate, as Dr. Dwernychuk and I said in our "Hatfield report." Hopefully this will involve cooperation between Argentina and Uruguay. I would add a few points to Dr. Dwernychuk's letter: 1) Dr. Dwernychuk stated that the mill is built to European BAT standards. In fact it is significantly better in some respects. Botnia elected to install more powerful effluent treatment and to operate with tighter in-mill control of atmospheric pollution and effluent generation than BAT. They also designed the system to provide electricity to the Uruguayan grid from burning wood waste, thus reducing the consumption of greenhouse gas and sulfur dioxide generating oil in the region. 2) In response to our suggestions Botnia added backup to the odor control system (which was already designed to EU BAT standard) and arranged to treat the black liquor from the Mercedes mill, as well as the municipal sewage from Fray Bentos. This results in a net reduction of total pollutants to the Rio Uruguay relative to the situation if the mill had not been built. 3) Concerning odor, it will occasionally be detectable in and around the mill, but I do not think at Gualeguaychu. In any case, the short episodes will be no more than smells noted from time to time in everyday life (passing trucks with poorly tuned engines, garbage trucks, farmer's manure etc). The odor and visible smoke will be dramatically less than that from the former meat processing plants in Fray Bentos and Gualeguaychu. I have worked 41 years in and around the pulp industry. I am not tied to, or representing, pulp mills in any way. As a partially retired consultant, I currently have 5 clients. In 4 cases, I am providing advice to lawyers suing mills over environmental performance. In the other I am assisting Environment Canada in regulating a mill to reduce water pollution. Neil McCubbin Foster, Quebec, Canada

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