Ill Winds Blowing Through Aberdeen Neighborhood -- Weyerhaeuser Waste Ponds Cited In Lawsuits

ABERDEEN - To the growing list of woes in Grays Harbor County, add fears of sickness from pollution.

For one Aberdeen neighborhood, that fear eclipses even the grim reality of joblessness throughout the Southwest Washington timber region - hit hard last month by news that the ITT-Rayonier/International pulp mill will be closed.

In a case that owes its existence to a repulsive smell, 241 residents of this neighborhood are seeking damages in Grays Harbor County Superior Court from what is now the area's biggest timber employer - Weyerhaeuser Co.

The plaintiffs, who include timber workers and business owners, allege the winds sweeping across the firm's foul-smelling waste-water collection pools carried chemicals that caused everything from nosebleeds and sore throats to lung disease and cancer. Each of the plaintiffs has filed an individual suit against the company. They go to trial in January.

Weyerhaeuser officials counter that these claims are unfounded. The company offered to pay for medical evaluations for residents with health complaints, and found no serious conditions in any of the two dozen people who took advantage of the offer. Dean Peterson, Weyerhaeuser attorney, said the ailments are "the same kinds of complaints people have everywhere," and added that the lawsuits are simply "opportunistic."

But plaintiff Kent Beach said it's justice, not money, he wants. "It's not just a bad smell," he said, ". . . it's a crime."

The lawsuit has perplexed some residents of this timber town, who say they can't understand why their neighbors would strike out against Weyerhaeuser.

"These people are cutting their own throats," said Steve Perry, a young man who moved to the neighborhood a year ago.

"In a lot of ways, if there weren't no Weyerhaeuser, there wouldn't be no Aberdeen," echoed longtime resident and Weyerhaeuser employee Gary Ambrose, who blames pollution for his persistent sinus trouble, but won't sue.

The plaintiffs argue that modifications at the ponds, intended to preserve the health of fish and oysters in Grays Harbor, simply rerouted pollution into the lungs of humans.

Though it comes from a community with little enthusiasm for environmentalism, the lawsuit has provoked new questions about possible health risks from long-term exposure to low levels of air pollutants. State health officials now say they will call for closer monitoring of such low-level emissions from waste-water treatment facilities and industries from Bellingham to Tacoma.

PONDS BUILT IN 1957

At the heart of the case is a pocket of blue-collar homes on the grassy flats across the harbor from downtown Aberdeen. The neighborhood, home to an estimated 700 to 1,000 people, lies a few hundred yards east of the smelly, foam-covered Weyerhaeuser ponds, built in 1957.

The four ponds hold waste water piped in from the Cosmopolis pulp mill to the east. Wood cellulose and pulp-processing chemicals settle to the bottom of the ponds, then the treated waste water is released into the harbor.

Aerators - huge stationary propellers - were installed in the 1970s to mix oxygen into rotting solids in the ponds and keep smells in check. Starting in the early 1980s, the state approved adding about 8 million pounds per year of sulfuric acid to the ponds as a bacteria-control measure aimed at protecting shellfish in the harbor.

BEGAN IN SUMMER OF '91

For plaintiffs like Gary Moore - a Weyerhaeuser employee who said he has "no loyalty" to the company - fear began in the summer of 1991, when an annoying stink began drifting from the ponds and hung in the air over southwest Aberdeen.

Neighbors say it took two forms, universally described as the "rotten-egg" stink and the "dirty-diaper" stink.

Reports of nosebleeds, vomiting, sore throats and itchy eyes began to rise. Moore tells of skin rashes, sore throats and his wife's persistent allergies. Neighbors' chain-link fences and mailboxes seemed to rust with inexplicable speed.

"Oh God, it was rank," said Wanda Ambrose, Gary's wife. "We couldn't even open the door, it stunk so bad."

The stench coincided with Weyerhaeuser's efforts to close down the ponds and switch to a new waste-treatment system that would reduce dioxin emissions into Grays Harbor. The aerators were shut down and sold, and undredged solids in the ponds began to smell as a result.

Reporters and state officials descended on the area. The state Health Department issued warnings to residents, advising those who suffered ill effects to shut their windows and turn on fans. A Senate panel held a hearing.

By August of this year, Weyerhaeuser had paid $1.3 million to buy new aerators and to take other measures to keep down the smell. The company was fined $150,000 by the state Ecology Department, the agency's highest-ever fine for an odor violation.

Exactly what was the stink? Ecology officials say it was caused by gas - chiefly hydrogen sulfide - wafting from the holding ponds as the undredged residue in the ponds decomposed without oxygen.

Weyerhaeuser's mistake was to remove and sell the aerators, according to state officials. The company's engineers thought they wouldn't be needed anymore, but without aerators, the fetid scum in the ponds turned sour, and air tainted with hydrogen sulfide billowed inland.

Weyerhaeuser contends levels of hydrogen sulfide weren't near high enough to cause harm.

"The company tried to act responsibly to try to minimize the odor problem," said Weyerhaeuser spokeswoman Kate Tate. "We do regret the project caused odors that inconvenienced them, but we don't believe it caused significant health effects."

But Harriet Ammann, state health-department senior toxicologist, said the levels were enough to exacerbate breathing problems and cause sore throats, nausea and itchy skin and eyes.

To plaintiffs, more worrisome than hydrogen sulfide is the idea that the wind sweeping over the ponds may have carried chemicals, such as sulfuric acid and chloroform, to their lungs, long before the stink made local headlines.

Chloroform is a suspected carcinogen. And recent findings tie sulfuric-acid mist to cancer of the larynx in humans, according to Jane Koenig, associate professor of environmental health at the University of Washington.

WEYERHAEUSER DENIES IT

Weyerhaeuser flatly denies such chemicals could be emitted from the ponds. Peterson said the ponds were no more acidic than Coca-Cola, and the mist didn't exist. As for other chemicals, they are present in such tiny amounts that they couldn't have caused health problems, he said.

And while turning off the aerators may have created the smell, the plaintiffs allege that when their blades were turned on and whirring they may have helped kick droplets of sulfuric acid and other dangerous chemicals, such as chloroform, into the air.

The firm's attorney, Peterson, said company officials are frustrated that efforts to address water-quality concerns have unleashed this volley of new complaints.

"It's like the law of unintended consequences. You do one thing to take care of one problem, and you get another," said Peterson.

Although the plaintiffs' "acid-mist" allegation is plausible, the claim is dependent on myriad variables - weather and bacterial activity, for example - which will make it very tricky to prove humans were exposed to harmful chemicals, said Tim Larson, University of Washington environmental engineering professor.

LAWSUIT'S COMPLEX

Toss in disputes over chemical concentrations, a history of poor health in Grays Harbor County, and an almost complete lack of data about air quality near the ponds, and you have a lawsuit of dizzying complexity.

Consider, too, that some plaintiffs might be considered at high risk for the health problems they suffered, with or without the ponds. For example, Bob Cotton, whose videotaped testimony may be used at the trial, smoked cigarettes until a few months before his death from lung disease earlier this year.

Throughout Grays Harbor County, rates of some cancers, including respiratory cancers, are consistently higher than the rest of the state. Floyd Frost, formerly an epidemiologist with the state Health Department, calls the county "a disaster area, from a health point of view." But he and other health experts say the causes could be manifold - rates of smoking may be higher there than elsewhere, for example.

None of this worries Hoquiam attorney Paul Stritmatter, however.

Stritmatter, who represents all the plaintiffs, said the pollutants may have served to aggravate and accelerate existing illnesses, rather than cause them. He said smokers, asthmatics, children and elderly people are far more sensitive to airborne chemicals.

Toxicologist Ammann agreed, saying such people are 100 to 1,000 times more sensitive, in some cases.

POLLUTION LEVEL DOWN

For now, Weyerhaeuser expects to take the holding ponds out of service entirely by next year. Company officials say a recent $16 million retooling of the Cosmopolis mill has brought a stunning drop in pollution from the mill.

And the fines levied against Weyerhaeuser went toward services at local hospitals, schools and fire departments.

All, though, comes too late for Southside residents like Robert Vessey, who didn't join the suit.

Vessey, 62, a former sawmill worker, suffers from severe asthma. Ordered by his doctor to move away from the neighborhood for the sake of his health, he and wife, Judy, recently sold their home, a short distance from the ponds, for $38,000, and are searching for a mobile home - somewhere where the air is cleaner.

Gasping and gripping his throat between sentences, Vessey said that though he believes the ponds forced this change in his retirement plans and his life, pollution isn't the real problem in Aberdeen.

"It's very sad here now," he said. "It's not like it was 20 years ago. The environmentalists are killing it."