What's this random pulp?

Can a pulp and paper company affect water quality of the river it on and whats is the effect on wildlife?

• what is a rick benefit analysis of bringing a pulp and paper plant to the community ?

• Answer:

  It definitely can. In order to get the "white" paper, the wood pulp (or recycled paper used in making new paer) has to be bleached, and the bleaching water can be released into streams. There's also clay (used in those shiny advertisements and magazine papers), cellulose (wood fiber), and other chemicals that the papermills might release. The effects would be a change in the pH of the receiving streams, a coating of sludge on the bottom of the streams that could smother plant life and aquatic insects which fish rely upon for food. The cellulose and organic material can "feed" bacteria, which use oxygen to decompose the organic parts of the waste, so there's less oxygen available to the fish and animals that live in the water. Plus, if you've never been by a paper mill, the odor coming from them is BAD. For these reasons, what and how much waste a paper mill can release into a stream or river in a specified period of time is regulated, and the mill must monitor the different chemicals they produce in their wastewater. If all waste collection and processing equipment is working correctly, and the papermills stay within the effluent levels for what they diischarge, pollution could be minimal. But if anything goes wrong, or the company tries to cut corners, or more papermills are built on the same section of stream/river, there could be problems - anything from relatively minor incidents, to large fish kills and poisoning of the stream for anything that lives in it, to difficulty cleaning the water for human use if the stream/river supplies drinking water to areas downstream. On the other hand, in the current economy, a papermill could provide jobs not only for those working at the mill, but the people who build the mill and cut the trees and transport them to the mill.