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Better science and worse diplomacy: negotiating the cleanup of the Swedish and Finnish pulp and paper industry

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Abstract

The purpose of this inquiry is to identify how environmental indicators and environmental technology in the science/policy boundary alternately facilitate and encumber international environmental negotiations. In a case involving a dispute between Sweden and Finland over one another’s contribution to the organochlorine pollution load to the Baltic Sea, indicators of environmental risk, including measures of allegedly toxic concentrations of organochlorines in Swedish and Finnish chemical pulp wastewater, did not bring the two sides closer to a settlement. Also, ironically, advances in technological solutions to the problem were unhelpful to the negotiation. For many months, the disputants failed to acknowledge that deliberations were slowed down by the parties’ pride and confidence in their respective national scientific, technological, and regulatory institutions. In recent years, the problems caused by organochlorine emissions from Swedish and Finnish pulp mills have been all but solved—a comparatively rare transboundary environmental “success story.” With the tackling of the problem, the competition between Sweden and Finland’s preferred engineering solutions has dramatically faded.

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Notes

  1. A p value is a probabilistic statistical measure; it is used most often in hypothesis testing. In hypothesis testing, a p value indicates the probability of obtaining a test statistic, by chance alone, that is as great or greater than the one observed. Generally, a small p value (<0.05) indicates that the null hypothesis can be rejected; the null hypothesis states that there are no significant differences between observed and expected data.

  2. Chemical pulp collects moisture from surrounding air, and is hence never 100% dry ("bone dry"). One ton of air dry pulp contains 90% ‘bone dry pulp’ and 10% water.

  3. During the negotiation period, compared to their Nordic counterparts, North American regulatory agencies were more preoccupied with the potential human health consequences of exposure to PCDD/Fs. For example, in the mid-1980s, in separate studies, E.P.A.-sponsored and US industry-sponsored scientists found trace amounts of 2,3,7,8-TCDD in a range of paper products, including sanitary napkins and diapers (Belsie 1987: 1; Weisskopf, 1987: A4). North American regulators' keen interest in dioxin and public health were stimulated, in part, by well-publicized dioxin contamination problems in Love Canal, New York and Times Beach, Missouri.

  4. Perhaps hundreds of articles had been published about health risks from dioxin (especially TCDD and TCDF) by the late 1980s. Most research dealt with accumulation, metabolism, and excretion of these compounds (see e.g. Olson et al. 1980; Andrews et al. 1989; Ogaki et al. 1987), but uncertainty about health effects from dioxins and other PCDD/Fs was high during the period. During the 1980s, evidence mounted that TCDD caused chloracne (a skin disease); porphyria (excessive urinary excretion of porphyrins and extreme sensitivity to light); liver damage, and noninflammatory degenerative nervous disorders; but other suspected pathologies, including soft tissue sarcoma and lung cancer had not been substantiated (Zakrzewski 1991:157). Beginning in the late 1980s into the early 1990s, many researchers began to discount earlier speculations about human health risks posed by TCDD. One review article by Kimbrough (1990) concluded that with the exception of the ailment chloracne, humans did not appear to be very susceptible to the toxic effects of TCDD. The author based her findings on studies of workers exposed to TCDD, time series data from major industrial accidents involving TCDD, and data on Vietnam War veterans exposed to the herbicide mixture, Agent Orange. Kimbrough (1990:264) calculated that humans of different ages could tolerate TCDD exposure up to 50,000 ng/kg (ppt) with only "minor systemic side effects…" excluding illness from chloracne.

    Indeed, chloracne was the main ailment suffered by victims of one of the world's worst industrial accidents involving TCDD. In July of 1976, in the Italian city of Seveso, a facility producing 2,4,5-trichlorophenol exploded, emitting a cloud of dioxin that settled on nearby homes. Around 20 cases of chloracne were recorded for every 100 individuals residing in the immediate vicinity of the plant (Caramaschi et al., 1981:135). No other pathologies were observed in follow-up studies. For example, Mastroiacovo et al. (1988) showed that residents of Seveso did not suffer from higher incidences of birth defects (teratogenicity) following the accident. The researchers noted, however, that problems in defining the exposed population, small sample size and spontaneous abortions may have biased their study (1988:1671–1672). Johnson (1993), reviewing data from longitudinal studies, indicated that cancer risks from TCDD were modest.

    In its 1994 "Dioxin Reassessment," EPA challenged many of the optimistic findings of the aforementioned review articles. EPA concluded that PCDD/Fs were associated with a great variety of toxicological effects including carcinogenesis; birth defects; fetal death; reduced sperm count; endometriosis; and other pathologies (USEPA 1994). In addition, EPA found that medical waste incinerators were responsible for a much larger fraction of PCDD/F emissions than previously reported. With reference to the most toxic dioxin (TCDD), EPA declared there was no safe or "threshold" dose below which no health effects occur (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services 1996: 298).

  5. SNV found it "disturbing" that in some instances, a single serving of Baltic salmon or west coast crab (about half-a-kilogram) gave an adult human being a dioxin dose close to the acceptable weekly intake (Swedish Environmental Protection Board 1988:192).

  6. Well into the 1990s, the pulp and paper industry continued to criticize AOX as a regulatory indicator. Some studies showed that AOX measures of bleached pulp wastewater correlated poorly with acute and chronic toxicity measures (O'Connor et al. 1993). North American researchers found that the standardized Nordic method for measuring AOX (SCAN) undercounted low-molecular-weight organochlorines (Sullivan and Douek 1996).

  7. HELCOM 11/4 also specified an older German technique for measuring organochlorines.

Abbreviations

AOX:

Adsorbable organic halide (or adsorbable organic halogen)

BAT:

Best available technology

BOD:

Biochemical oxygen demand

CFC:

Chlorofluorocarbon

COD:

Chemical oxygen demand

DDT:

Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane

EPA:

Environmental protection agency

HCFC:

Hydrofluorocarbon

HELCOM:

Helsinki Commission

NGO:

Non-governmental organization

OECD:

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

PCB:

Polychlorinated biphenyl

PCDD:

Polychlorodibenzo-p-dioxins

PCDF:

Polychlorodibenzofurans

SCAN:

Scandinavian Pulp, Paper, and Board Testing Committee

SNV:

Swedish National Environmental Protection Board

STS:

Science and technology studies

TCDD:

2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin

TOCl:

Total organically bound chlorine

TEQ:

Toxic equivalent

USSR:

Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

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Acknowledgments

Research for this article was made possible with funding from the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education.

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    Matthew R. Auer

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Auer, M.R. Better science and worse diplomacy: negotiating the cleanup of the Swedish and Finnish pulp and paper industry. Int Environ Agreements 10, 65–84 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10784-009-9112-z

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