Public Hearing Transcript
5/10/2010
Georgia Pacific Crossett
Becky Allison: Good evening. It’s May tenth, two thousand ten, we are in Crossett for a water permit hearing for Georgia Pacific. Steve Drown is the hearing officer, my name is Becky Allison and I will be calling names. And I will ask you to come forward, state your name and your mailing address then make your comment. If you have a written comment, we would love to also receive that whether or not you make a verbal comment tonight. And the first name I have is Sheryl Falvit? As you’re coming forward, let me say that I’m going to inter into the record a copy of the legal notice that mounts tonight’s hearing also a memo uh, concerning the public participation activities we took towards this hearing.
Cheryl Slavant: My name is Cheryl Slavant. My address is 2610 Washington Street, Monroe Louisiana. The clean water act provides for the protection and propagation of fish, shell fish and wild life. It provides for recreation in and on the water. Citizens of Louisiana are deprived of this protection because of Georgia Pacific’s wastewater. The color and smell of the river below Coffee creek is offensive. If water quality were improved, Louisiana citizens could utilize and enjoy the same water quality that Arkansas enjoys about Coffee creek. It is my belief this pollution would never be allowed north of the three lakes area or in any other tourist area in Arkansas. Louisiana would like the opportunity to develop our own tourist attractions along the Ouachita but we are handicapped by the pollution ADEQ allows to come down river into Louisiana. We are asking that ADEQ re-designate Coffee creek as per the EPA study that acknowledges the waters of coffee creek and mossy lake have the potential to support aquatic life indicated of streams in the eco-region. Also, we believe the UAA is out of date. It’s 1084 and incomplete and fails to consider a 2007 EPA UAA. On april 27, 2010 Mr. James W. Cuthbert, environmental and quality manager for Georgia Pacific at a meeting with the uh, Morehouse Parish Police Jury and the Ouachita River Keeper, which is myself, in attendance, acknowledged that people were fishing in Mossy lake and catching large fish. We believe this verifies that EPA was correct and that Coffee Creek should be re-designated. I have here some pictures. This is pictures of the black liquor, as I call it, entering coffee creek. 85 million gallons a day. We have here, let me get this straight. A picture, this is Arkansas up here and you can see the color is much lighter, this is Georgia Pacific’s effluent into coffee creek and as you see down here, the rover in Louisiana is much darker and this is not fair. This is our scenic river, up above Monroe. And it should have special protection and it does not and we ask that ADEQ correct all of this. That they use a better UAA and uh, re-designate Coffee Creek and Mossy Lake for aquatic life as EPA has asked them to do, thank you.
Steve Drown: Thank you very much.
BA: The next speaker is Michael Care and Leo Miller is Leo Mill will you be ready please. Will you state you name and your mailing address.
Michael Caire: My name is Michael Caire, I live at 117 Park West Drive and Western Road. I’ve been a long-time user of the Ouachita and own property along the Ouachita River. Many of my initial questions was answered by y’all’s presentation but there is the user availability analysis which y’all have stated you continue to use from 1984, uh, User Availability Analysis. Uh, there is a EPA one that’s more recent. I would request that the permit, if and when the department of DEQ of Arkansas ever updates their User Availability Analysis into their record that the Georgia Pacific permit would be in compliant with that new and not continue to be uh, based on a very old 1984 User Availability Analysis in which it actually designates that Mossy Lake is non-viable, essentially is what the designating is. Thank you.
BA: Mr. Miller. Jim Cuthbert, would you be ready please.
Leo Miller. My name is Leo Miller. I’m at 129 Julia Street in West Monroe Louisiana. Unfortunately I happen to be a practicing attorney in West Monroe and more unfortunately I’m a chemical engineer turned lawyer but fortunately, I don’t’ have to talk about law or chemistry or engineering tonight, which is wonderful. The fudemental issue that I would like to address is the protection and preservation of a very precious natural resource, the Ouachita Rive, that belongs to all of us. No matter what state we happen to be a citizen of. I live on the river. I live just south of Sterlington on the Deluder (sp) basin and everything that is dumped into the river under this particular application and permit will come by my house and I’ll look at it every day. I and many people from Louisiana, who are here today, love the river. Some people call us river rats. When they do that we puff up ‘cause we’re proud, ‘cause we love our river. We believe that this permit renewal application and the present version of the permit will diminish, injure and destroy the river. We further believe that the river has been inappropriately used and abused for years. And this is a, an excellent opportunity for that wrong to be righted. You say, what do you ask? What will make you happy? It’s very simple. It’s not complicated. You look at the water clarity and color and odor as the water comes through Felsenthal and you give it the same test after the effluent is put into the river. If you do that, the quality, where I live, will not be a dark brown, turbid, very unclear water. It’ll be clear. It’ll be clean and it might even be blue. Who knows? Like it is north of Felsenthal. We believe that Georgia Pacific should be required to properly pre-treat materials, which they deposit period, paragraph, and remove the things that are in their discharge that cause a significant change in color, odor and turbidity in the water. The practical side of this story is that the point of discharge is just short, just north of the Louisiana line. The further practical part of this story that I didn’t know until tonight was that on many of these things there are no standards or meaningful standards. I respectfully suggest, regardless of standards, the result should be the same and would call upon ADEQ to please impose whatever it takes to create an appropriate result, with or without existing standards. The Ouachita River is one of the last truly pristine river systems in these United States and we are blessed to have it and we all are vigilantly protective and this is one of the key things that ought to be done in this particular permit application. Jst south of my home, there is ten miles of unspoiled virgin river and wilderness and it’s just like- I get chills ever time I say that but it’s true. It’s just like stepping back 200 years. And when you go down there as my wife and I do frequently on our house boat and we pull up on that white sandy beach and we spend the night and we grill groceries and we do, a spend the night on the beach thing and you get up in the morning and you drink coffee and you look at the sun come up and you say ‘you know folks, it doesn’t get any better’n this.’ And how come we have civilization anyway. Which of course you already have to remember that you already cut on the generator and the air conditioner during the summer but it’s not quite like being in the wilderness but it gives you that taste and it’s a precious thing and it’s a wonderful thing and we ought to protect it. [alarm sounds] And it doesn’t matter what it takes and I don’t care if there’s no standard, do it anyway. And if that’s my time to go off, [in response to alarm] (BA: Yes it is…) Well, I’ll close by saying this: I’ll would extend a personal invitation to anyone with ADEQ who would like to do a spend the night on the beach experience and see what it’s like and if you do it, I’ll warn you, it’s gonna to move ya, and it’s gonna change ya and you’ll understand how come we love our river.
BA: Thank you sir. [Applause] Jim Cuthbirth and Michael Smith, please be ready. State your name and mailing address.
Jim Cutbirth: Yes Ma’am. I’m Jim Cutbith I live at 113 East Frenchman’s Bend, Sterlington Louisiana. I’m the environmental manager for the consumer products down here in Crossett Arkansas, and believe it or not, I’ve worked in the paper industry for 28 y ears and this is my first public hearing. I want you to know I embrace the opportunity to get up here and speak about the company I work for. Georgia Pacific is a company of values, a company that hold the words integrity and compliance higher than any other two words. Value creation is what we do and compliance integrity is how we do it. Before I speak about environmental stewardship and our NPDES permit, I want to talk about the business philosophy and culture mind set of present day Georgia Pacific that is going to allow our company’s competing survival to outperform our competitors for a very long time. The philosophy’s can be called market based management or MBM for short. It’s a set of mental models that organized by and interpreted through a framework of five interdependent and reinforcement dimensions: vision, virtues and talent, knowledge and processes, uh, [unknown word sound like “sision”] rights and incentives. The MBM principals which, are a model within the virtue and talents dimension form the MBM culture, or better said, the culture mindset of modern day Georgia Pacific. Understanding the 5 dimensions of MBM and practicing real life the guiding principals of [unknown phrase sounds like “the rock”] the values, the virtues and talents, dimensions of MBM allow us in [unknown phrase sounds like “power sheet”] community to employ through benefits society for themselves both inside and outside the property bounds of GP. There are ten guiding principals, first two of which is integrity and compliance. Integrity is simply always doing the right thing when nobody else is looking. Compliance is fully mitigating risk and ensure all typical laws, regulations and GP compliance theories are met. That’s 100% of our employees doing the right thing 100% of the time. Ten thousand percent compliance. Irregardless of how smart or valuable an employee might be, if you don’t comply with federal, state and company rules and act with integrity in everything we do, you won’t work for Georgia Pacific. These two principals serve as prerequisites for employment. A program that creates long-term valuable striving for ten thousand percent compliance day and day out, you have to believe in excellence. And we do. We believe environmental excellence is a prerequisite for value creation and mandatory for long-term success. It’s in the best mutual interest for us all. It’s believing that nothing is so important that we can’t do it in a safe, environmentally sound compliant and ethical manner. Taking shortcuts for safer production, pushing a piece of pollution abation equipment, venting NCGs or pushing capacity just simply isn’t acceptable. Even if it’s within the tolerance of the law, it’s not acceptable to us. We strive for excellence with a shared vision that’s common across Georgia Pacific: in our corporate, or businesses, our facilities and our teams. And we build a culture of values and beliefs and behaviors allowing to achieve ten thousand percent compliance. We’ve established the means to communicate what’s right and wrong through one-one training communication, we maintain resident expertise at the mill level and corporate levels to track and implement new and existing regulations as well as provide guidance and oversight of our operations to ensure that we fully comply with all regulations, our licenses and our permits. The expectation Pacific. We’ve got a clients and ethics corporate group that’s second to none and through of ten thousand percent compliance starts at the very top of the organization at Georgia this group GP has issued a code of conduct to which all employees are expected to act and understand and comply with. Our corporate compliance staff has written environmental compliance standards on every subject matter that pertains to Georgia Pacific. The risk management systems have been put in place the require re-cause analysis of any environmental incident that has occurred. We audit ourselves, corporate arts audits us, regulatory agencies audit us. We’re providing a safer work environment for employees than we ever have. We require the same level of commitment and performance for our contractors that work at our facilities that we do for our own employees. We’re using materials, natural resources and energy in the most efficient ways to produce our products and to support sustainable growth. And we work proactively with legislators, regulators and concerned groups and our industrial peers to develop effective approaches to health and safety and environmental protection. At the mill level, we have five full-time professionals in the environmental department that work to ensure all record keeping and recording requirements are met. The environmental department is organized into subject matter: air, water, solid and hazardous waste. There’s many other protocols we manage, but I’m not going to get into it here, but we stay very, very busy. I don’t mean to imply that environmental compliance starts and stops with our department, all our employees have a role in environmental compliance, a responsibility to comply and an expectation to do the right thing all the time. Remember, compliance is a continuous prerequisite for employment. Environmental stewardship is not defined by a single event [alarm sounds], that the alarm? I was talkin’ as fast I could. [audience laughs] But I would like to address the one comment: uh, we don’t have people fishing in Mossy Lake. The statement made is we have people fishing at the mouth of the discharge at the Ouachita River where we discharge not at Mossy Lake. So…
BA: OK, next is Michael Smith and Eddy Wayne Birch, if you would be ready please. [footsteps] And you’ll state your name and your mailing address.
Mike Smith: My name’s Mike Smith and my address is 125 Main Street, Crossett 71635. And I would like to thank ADEQ for being here and the job you do protecting the Ouachita and keeping it one of the last pristine waterways in the United States. I interact often with ADEQ in my capacity and I’ve always found y’all to be very responsive and quick to answer our questions and talk to us about any issue we have and, in resolving those issues and we appreciate that. Crossett was born as a mill town. Theres- and I think the people of Southeast Arkansas, Northeast Louisiana are the best in the world at taking a natural, renewable resource and turning it into a product that can be used. I think that, um, Crossett has benefited, our state has benefited from this, ah, and many residents in Arkansas and Northeast Louisiana has achieved a standard of living that is very, very high for our area of the country because of our natural resource. I appreciate Georgia Pacific, the investments that they have made in capital investment and equipment, most importantly, the investment that they have made in our people. We were one of the first communities to practice sustainable renewable forestry and I think that carries over today into, into our resources including the Ouachita River. WE have continuous training for the employees, their engineers, including their environmental engineers, that they employ and, and these people are people we go to church with, that we take our kids to school with, and we see every day. I would simply ask that ADEQ, that once you comb through the data that has been collected, once you have looked at that and compared it to the standards that have been set and to the most stringent standards as you have indicated tonight, that once you do that, that if those standards are met, if we are within those tolerances that you would quickly issue and renew this permit that has been applied for so that the people who live in this community, like myself who have kids here and kids at home and fish and utilize the Ouachita River, fish in the Ouachita River, that we can be reassured in what we already believe: that, that our river, that our environment is being protected to the letter of the law and that we can go on about, ah, taking care of our business, producing our products and, and enjoying that natural resources that we have all around us.
BA: Eddy Wayne Burch and, uh, Brad Acres, be ready.
Eddy Wayne Burch: My name is Eddy Wayne Burch. My address is 566 ashton road 471 Hamburg, Arkansas. I’ve been employed with Georgia Pacific since high school. Uh, I’m a USW member, local member 5369. I represent Georgia Pacific and the USW local through the pulp and paperwork resource council which was started out because of issues like this. In the West coast there an ivory billed woodpecker, not that I’d be able to the uh, [pause…audience member “spotted owl”] Spotted Owl, thank you sir, I had lost [illegible word] the barn owl was getting run off, the spotted owl was gettin’ run off. Well, if you, my people always say the squeakiest wheel gets the grease. Well if, if the Louisiana people go cryin’ to Arkansas and they only here one side of the story, that’s how the mills get shut down. So that why the PPRC was created: so they could hear both sides of the story and weigh it out. I remember just here recently when the Bassett mill was operatin’, you could go south of Bassett and you couldn’t stand the smell. Pretty sure they discharge their effluent right there in the Ouachita River also. Same way with River Side in West Monroe. They discharge into Ouachita. So, Georgia Pacific, is, are cleanin’ their water up. As far as I know Georgia Pacific is always cleaned their water up, EPA stay straight, Crossett smelled just as bad. The EPA says clean it up and they cleaned it up. Now it’s the same way with us. Georgia Pacific is going to do all it can do to keep our water safe. Like the comment says while ago, you can not fish in Mossy Lake or Coffee Creek. And uh, I’m just an old country boy and I ain’t gonna be no five minutes, now, but uh, I’m just up here commentin’ where I think Georgia Pacific does right. As far as I know they do and that’s why I’m move forward with ‘em. Thank you.
BA: Brad Acres and Jay Johnson be ready. Name and your address.
Brad Acres: My name’s Brad Acres. I live at 113 Hidden Acres Drive, Crossett, Arkansas. I’m currently serve as president as Crossett area chamber of commerce, who I represent tonight. Our organization has a primary focus of community and economic development, that we rely heavily on the support of local businesses and individuals in all of our endevours. Georgia Pacific has always been an active member in chamber activities and ahs been historically a very generous contributor, both financially and hands-on involvement. Georgia Pacific plays a key roll in Project Graduation, Annual Buddy Bass tournament, [unknown name] Cabin Festival and many more like activities. They’re also quick to add benefit to the community through highway and park clean up efforts, supply and installation of new playground equipment at the city park, construction, of new habitats at the zoo, and various education programs provided in our school system. We would like to go on record as saying we support Georgia Pacific and the presence of this company in our community and appreciate all that they do to make Crossett a better place for our residence. Thank you.
BA Jerry Johnson and Norma Hill, get ready. State your name and mailing address, sir.
Jerry Johnson: My Name is Jerry Johnson. My address is 10730 McWright Street, Basquaith Louisiana. And uh, I would like to just make a little comment up front. I know the paper market is soft and I have compassion for that. I wouldn’t endorse anything that would shut down Crossett Paper Mill. I’ll assure you of that. But something has happened to the quality of water in the Ouachita River since the nineteen fifties. Now it’s my belief that we can co-exist and I’m not pointing fingers at Georgia Pacific or no one else. It may be a culmination of a lot of things. But the quality of water I can attest to that has got worse since the nineteen fifties. I remember, and I mentioned this earlier, that I could see the bottom of the Ouachita River in the late summer and early fall. I would love to see it back there again. Now I know it may take a lot of effort and it may take ah, more people than Georgia Pacific to get it there. But I would just like to be assured that ADEQ, ADEQ uh, is makin’ every effort to make sure that we’re not over-polluting the river and I think we can do that and we can co-exist without spending billions of dollars to do it. And uh I, I, I’m just a firm believer that the water that we discharge back into the river should be of the same quality that we pump out and I don’t think that’s bein’ radical. It’s just common sense. That we need to leave things like we find it and I mentioned earlier if we go into a state park and we carry our lunch, we need to clean our mess up. That’s all I’m asking. That DEQ-. I’ve worked at International Paper Company for thirty eight years and I know the struggles of the paper company and, and I’m aware of that. I support the paper industry. I certainly would think that we would miss Georgia Pacific tremendously if anything happened to that plant. And, and, and I certainly would hate to see that happen. But we can work together and we can clean the river up. And I think we could do it without a lot of expense. As I said, I’m not pointing fingers but I would like ADEQ to assure us that the water that they put back into the river is about the same quality that they pump out and uh, [cough] the question is if we have a hundred paper mills discharging the same kind of water into the Ouachita River as uh, Georgia Pacific in Crossett would we be polluted and if not we’re doin’ a good job. Thank you so much.
BA: Thank you sir. [applause obscures BA’s next comment] and uh, Jimmy Jeffress be ready.
Norman Hill: I’m Norman Hill, I live at 327 highway 172 Monticello, Arkansas. That’s where I sleep and change close and shower I spend a lot of time at 219 Main Street here in Crossett at the Crossett School District Administration Building. I’m a business manager and as a business manager across the school district I spent a lot of time working with Georgia Pacific on different issues and so forth and I’ve found that they are a great corporate citizen. They are very responsive. In the school business we are approximately 2000 students that we primarily charged with educating but we’re also concerned with their physical health as well as their mental health and uh, their social health and so forth and we find that Georgia Pacific is a great corporate citizen at picking up and helping us fulfill our obligations. They are very responsive to anything that we ask for ‘em, whether it has to do with something we think it affects the health of our students, which could be air quality or water quality or any other quality and they respond. They’re, they send their people or we can meet with their people, we can talk with em’, they will give us answers that we feel competent that is the truth and so forth and uh, as you can tell in speaking here I’m very much in favor of this permit because I think they are a great asset not only to Crossett, Arkansas but to South Louisiana to uh, all of uh, all of Eastern Arkansas and Southeast because they do not try to come into our community, I’ve worked in a lot of communities and I’ve had corporations and communities that come in that primarily concerned with just making a profit and taking out everything and Georgia Pacific I can assure you from working with them, it’s not that type of corporation and therefore I believe that they can to make sure that the discharge in the water that we’re looking at here meets the requirements of the specifications. It may not be exactly everybody that lives on the river what they are but I’m, I’m assured that their people have enough integrity and I believe in ‘em and working with them, the things that I do that what they’re saying and we’re also have test run behind them to verify this and they realize that they’re not coming up with the proper things that’s gonna be found out, they got major problems. Therefore, I’m one hundred percent in favor of the permit and I think they’re a great corporate citizen and they’re protecting not only uh, our environment but every issue that we have that comes up with them because they believe that they are part of it and their workers live here. They don’t fly in and fly out. They live here, they raise their children here, they raise their families here. And I do not believe that they would have anything to do with something that would affect their-, they might not be so concerned about mine, or I may not be concerned about yours but I guarantee you I’m concerned about mine. I would not do anything to mess my own house up. Thank you.
BA: Thank you. Senator Jeffress and Neil Sitters, be ready please.
Jim Jeffress: My name is Jimmy Jeffers my address is 711 Maple Street here in Crossett, Arkansas. I was raised within seeing distance of the Ouachita River. You could throw a rock from my bedroom window most times and hit the river with it. I lived there until I was grown and I married and finally moved to town and I hope to die someday and still have some of that Ouachita River mud between my toes. I, I don’t think I’ll ever not be a county boy. My mother was a native of June Parish Louisiana. I say that to tell that I’ve got a great love for all of south Arkansas and north Louisiana. I don’t think that I would go to bed tonight and rest at all if I thought that we, Georgia Pacific or anyone else, was doing anything that was going to harm our river and our way of life in our area. And, one other thing as well: I have no relatives working for Georgia Pacific so I have no vested interest in that regard other than just my love of my community and our great corporate citizen Georgia Pacific. And I want to just make my final statement and say this: that if all current EPA and LDEQ and ADEQ requirements are being met through this permit application and if all the appropriate monitoring is being carried out properly then I would like to see this permit request approved and finalized, thank you.
BA: Neil Sitters and uh, Randy Garth, please be ready. State your name and mailing address.
Neil Sidders: my name is Neil Sidders. I live at 235 Roland Road in Monroe Louisiana. Um, I spent a lot of time on the river and my daughters are avid water skiers. Number of other people I know are avid water skiers. We’re not fisherman or anything but I got a lot of respect for anybody that uses the river. But the problem and this a reality, if you get an injury on the Ouachita river, a scrap, a rope burn, a laceration you will have to treat it immediately or you will have an infection that will require a doctor. If you ski on Canney Creek Reservoir, it’s not that big a deal. You can get the same injury; put a band aid on it. Something is in the water. Ouachita River will make you sick. Thank you.
BA: Thank you. Lanny Dark and Anthony Cockrell, please be ready. State your name and mailing address.
Lanny Dark: I’m Lanny Dark. My mailing address is 1232 Highway 559, Columbia Louisiana. I’m currently president of Caldwell Parrish Police Jury. I believe the others have adequately stated what my concern is. My concern is about the, the dark stains comin’ in the river. And, I know from the make up of the stain, under certain conditions, they’ll cut the oxygen to the river and when you cut the oxygen to any water you have a chance when conditions are right to kill wildlife, fishes, and that’s my major concern is to see this dark stain cut down. Thank you.
BA: Thank you, sir. Anthony Cockrell and Teresa Walsh, please be ready. State your name and mailing address.
Anthony Cockrell: Good evening. I’m Anthony Cockrell. My mailing address is 3876, highway 169 south. Show you something. [away from microphone] that happens to be, right there. I live in the heart of Georgia Pacific’s wastewater treatment facility. I live within spittin’ distance of Coffee Creek. I been born and raised there all my life. I don’t have city runnin’ water out there. We suck water out of the well, right out of the ground. Ain’t none of my kids got three legs. Ain’t none of ‘em got a tail. And we been drinking the water from there. I been fishin’ in the Ouachita River all my life. I may have some of you beat today. I been to the river today. Uh, on my trot lines. I have trot lines south of the influent of the wastewater, uh, I eat the fish out of the Ouachita River. I’m a pretty healthy old boy. It’s not hurt me none yet. I am employed by the City of Crossett Wastewater Operations. Uhm, I work for the city for the last fifteen, almost fifteen years now, in the wastewater department. I deal with Georgia Pacific and their guidelines as far as their permits and I have a very stringent uh, to adhere to and we do. There is no give anywhere. There’s not gonna be “we’ll do better next month,” or “we’ll do better next month, week.” We strive to do the best we can all the time. Strictly because I live there. My kids swim in that water. So, that’s the reason I do trust Georgia Pacific. I deal with ‘em. I know how they, I know how they operate. And I know how we operate. So, please feel more comfortable with these permits. We are following all guidelines. If we weren’t, we wouldn’t be dumping any water. Thank you.
BA: Thank you, sir. Teresa Walsh. State your name and your mailing address.
Teresa Walsh: Thank you. My name is Teresa Walsh. 602 Beech Street, Crossett, Arkansas. I work for Georgia Pacific. And to gain approval to renew an NPDES permit. Extensive analysis of the effluent is required. In addition to meeting all EPA and Arkansas Criteria, the cri-, the application has to meet all Louisiana criteria as been stated tonight. Thus a priority pollutant analysis was required and extensive list of chemical compounds such as pesticides, herbicides and other organic compounds that we wouldn’t normally test for was tested. Our new permit will essentially reflect our present permit. EPA and ADEQ will require us to monitor some metals and basic nutrient compounds that we haven’t before. That this action is consistent with other NPDES permits being issued in Arkansas. As most of you know, Georgia Pacific discharges water, enters the Ouachita River approximately one mile north of the Louisiana border. Based on the comments and requests thusly received by ADEQ to host a public meeting we believe that there are some misconceptions regarding Georgia Pacific. The fact is, if Georgia Pacific were shut down tomorrow, the water would not be crystal clear and would not be blue. The reason for the dark color, the dark color in the effluent is from wood towns, not from dioxin. We demonstrate dioxin as non-detectable in our effluent using current analytical testing methods. We treat and discharge on a continuous basis 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The fact is, water samples demonstrate the over-all appearance of the Ouachita River is essentially the same one mile north of the discharge as it is one mile below our effluent discharge point and the state regulations can only be as stringent, or more stringent than the federal government, less they be less stringent. Following the comments received by ADEQ, we reached out to our neighboring police juror members to share information about our discharge, our processes and to discuss the Ouachita River itself. Many of you are here tonight. We collected water samples and we shared the analysis and we shared the overall operations of our mill and related wastewater treatment operations. We strive to be good neighbors and good citizens. And we apr-, we deeply appreciate those police jurors that met with us. Mossy Lake and Coffee Creek is and has been a component of GP wastewater treatment operations. There’s no doubt about it, the tannins from the wood we use, were used to produce paper products, give our effluent an iced-tea color, no doubt about it. And that’s characteristics in the wood manufacturing process. Our environmental stewardship program goes beyond the borders of our mill, to highway clean ups to school programs to working with the Ashley County Skilled Work-source Center to make sure we recycle materials that help with the existence of that program, to public use of Lake Georgia Pacific and so on and so fourth. All of our environmental outreaches of our, of our company. The one thing that no one has ever questioned is the importance of GP’s existence and what it means to our economy and the surrounding population and the sincerity I think behind Georgia Pacific to be a good corporate citizen. There are two thousand forty Georgia Pacific Crossett employees. I personally use the river for fishing and value the river for fishing and value the river and the surrounding areas. For mother’s day I got a new fishing rod and reel. Yesterday, for lunch I fed my mother-in-law fish caught from the Ouachita River the day before. It was good. Sorry you all weren’t there. But neither I nor the company I work for would do anything in anyway to be harmful of the river. I too, treasure it just as much as you treasure it and I thank you for allowing us to comment.
BA: Thank you.
Steve Drown: That’s all the cards we have. Would anybody else like to speak for the record? Ok, seeing none, I declare this public hearing closed. Thank you.
[sounds of disbandment and shuffling]
end of recording