Ed. Note: In the March issue of Pulp & Paper Canada (p.28), the report on Pierre Martel’s presentation in session 4-E, Environmental successes in Canadian mills, contained a few errors. What follows i…
Ed. Note: In the March issue of Pulp & Paper Canada (p.28), the report on Pierre Martel’s presentation in session 4-E, Environmental successes in Canadian mills, contained a few errors. What follows is a corrected version of the text. Pulp & Paper Canada regrets any confusion this may have caused.
Pierre Martel from Paprican presented a summary of laboratory and field studies aimed at assessing the quality of effluents after there were process changes at pulp and paper mills. In the laboratory, the effects of effluents on reproduction were studied using short-term tests with the invertebrate Ceriodaphnia and with fathead minnow life cycle tests. “Our findings suggest that optimization of secondary treatment had a significant influence on effluent quality,” said Martel. In kraft mills, other important factors were improvements on the pulping side of operations accompanied by increased chlorine dioxide substitution. Field studies currently underway at other mill sites have shown that installation and optimization of secondary treatment results in a marked recovery in the health status of fish communities. An index of biotic integrity is used to rate fish communities. It is based on species diversity, structure, and abundance.
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