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INTERNATIONAL PAPER, EPA AND OTHER PARTIES SIGN INNOVATIVE AGREEMENT FOR IP'S JAY MILL

Release Date: 04/25/2000
Contact Information: Amy Miller, EPA Press Office (617-918-1042)

AUGUSTA, Maine - Representatives from International Paper, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the State of Maine and the Town of Jay today signed an innovative agreement that will allow the company's Androscoggin Mill to develop and use a first-of-its-kind monitoring technology for its waste fuel incinerator. The technology will benefit local residents by making available immediate information about air emissions and helping the company make greater reductions in air pollution more quickly.

The agreement, negotiated under EPA's Project XL (eXcellence and Leadership) Program, provides International Paper with regulatory flexibility so that it can develop and install advanced air monitoring equipment at its Jay facility in place of conventional monitoring equipment, which measured emissions after they have already occurred.

"This new technology will allow the company to take steps to prevent emissions, rather than simply treating them," said Michael Craft, mill manager at International Paper's Androscoggin Mill. "This new technology also will provide us with information that will enable us to tweak the manufacturing process, so that we can achieve greater efficiencies and, most important, the lowest and cleanest emissions possible."

The technology will allow for continuous real-time emissions data to be available to the company, the community and regulators like EPA and the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. "The community really wanted more information on emissions, especially particulates, so we took on the task of finding a way to provide that information," said mill superintendent Tom Saviello, noting that current regulations call for only one stack test a year for some particulates.

Today's XL project is part of an effort by EPA to reinvent government and environmental regulations in ways that are both cleaner for the environment and less expensive for regulators and the regulated community. The project will run for four years at the Androscoggin Mill, with oversight by regulatory agencies and specific stakeholders, including the University of Maine, the Western Mountain Alliance and the Penobscot Nation.

Betsy Shaw, who is in charge of EPA's Office of Reinvention, said the most important benefit of today's agreement is increased environmental and public health protection for residents of Maine.

"This is a unique project," said Shaw, who attended today's signing with EPA New England's Acting Deputy Regional Administrator Ira Leighton. "The company believes in what they're doing enough to provide much more data than they are required by law. That's the kind of corporate citizenship that fits well with programs like XL."

"We've come to expect this type of leadership from IP's Androscoggin Mill," added Martha Kirkpatrick, commissioner at the Maine Department of Environmental Protection. "They've made a number of very aggressive environmental moves and become a leader for Maine's pulp and paper industry. We're hopeful that this new technology will serve as a model for other industrial facilities."

EPA's Project XL is a national pilot program that allows state and local governments and businesses to develop with EPA innovative strategies to test better and more cost-effective ways of achieving environmental and public health protection. Under the program, EPA will provide participants with regulatory flexibility to conduct experiments after being satisfied that specific XL criteria are being met. Among the required criteria are superior environmental results beyond those that would have been achieved under existing regulations and policies, high potential for transferring the technology to other facilities and strong support from stakeholder groups.