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Three public utilities continue to track a decades-old groundwater plume at the site of the Springfield mill. The chemical contamination is pentachlorophenol, a toxic wood preservative used at the site by the former owner, Weyerhaeuser.
Pockets of contamination remain above the federal limit for safe drinking water in an underground chemical plume that has emanated for more than 30 years from the Springfield mill along Highway 126 that is now owned by International Paper.
Those pockets lie about a mile from where Eugene Water & Electric Board draws drinking water from the McKenzie River at its Hayden Bridge Filtration Plant. Even closer is a well field jointly owned by Springfield Utility Board and Rainbow Water District.
“It’s a potential threat,” Susan Fricke, EWEB water resources and quality assurance supervisor, told Lookout Eugene-Springfield after giving a presentation to EWEB commissioners, Tuesday, April 7, about the overall state of the McKenzie watershed.
The watershed’s quality itself is excellent, according to her presentation. It begins on the western slope of the Three Sisters, where pristine groundwater and snowmelt feed the McKenzie River and surrounding creeks.
But as water flows downstream into the Willamette Valley, several sources of pollution take a toll. EWEB’s staff tracks that pollution before it becomes a problem at the filtration plant.
One source of concern is pentachlorophenol, or PCP, a highly toxic human-made chemical that does not break down easily in the environment. And it’s in the ground beneath the International Paper’s Springfield mill — which was once owned by Weyerhauser — where workers applied the chemical to lumber and timber to prevent or reduce fungus or decay.
It’s the same chemical that helped trigger the Superfund status of J.H. Baxter & Co. in west Eugene.
However, unlike J.H. Baxter, International Paper and Weyerhaeuser have continued to fund long-term monitoring and management of the contamination.
In March, International Paper’s engineering and environmental consultants filed a required annual report with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. That report is shared with EWEB, SUB, and the Rainbow Water District.
It showed PCP is present in two groundwater zones within International Paper’s 176-acre property. One is beneath the section of the company’s complex that produces material for cardboard boxes. The other sits along the northwest edge of the site, extending gradually downhill about 20 feet, under Highway 126 and toward the McKenzie River.
Wells within the zone near Highway 126 that monitor the contamination detected PCP concentrations up to eight times the level allowed under the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Primary Drinking Water Regulations.
“We definitely want to keep an eye on these wells, but just because one of the wells would be at a level of concern, doesn’t mean [it’s a concern] by the time that reaches the McKenzie,” Fricke said.
Fricke’s team has closely followed reports about the area because concentrations have fluctuated over the past decade. The latest report indicates results have stabilized in recent years, she told commissioners.
Overall, the plume has generally decreased since the contamination was discovered in the early 1990s, when Weyerhaeuser was redeveloping its closed sawmills. At that time, the company entered a voluntary cleanup program with state Department of Environmental Quality. Under DEQ’s oversight, Weyerhaeuser excavated nearly 1,500 tons of PCP-contaminated soil and disposed of it at a regional hazardous waste landfill.
Weyerhaeuser then monitored lingering contamination with the state until it sold the property in 2008 to International Paper, which then assumed that responsibility, according to DEQ.
International Paper also continues to maintain a treatment system that Weyerhaeuser built for Rainbow Water District to filter PCP should it get into the water supply.
That system is outside the office window of Rainbow Water District Superintendent Jamie Porter, who still has concerns about the chemical’s impact, though he said those concerns are “somewhat alleviated with the knowledge that PCP has not been detected in our supply wells since 2015.”
Even then, Porter said, PCP was below the threshold considered safe for drinking water, and “this additional layer of filtration provides us reassurance regarding the safety of our treated water.”
SUB and Rainbow Water District draw water from the well fields to serve their customers. The utilities provide water to about 61,000 and 2,000 people, respectively, each year. The utilities did not specify how many customers are served directly by the well field near the contamination.
International Paper did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
