This letter is reproduced here exactly as sent on June 5, 2026 (mail), with no wording changed for this website — including its original formatting and any typographical or factual errors present in the letter as sent. The one explicit exception is David’s personal phone number, redacted per his standing instruction for this site (matching how every other letter in this set has had its phone number redacted). The signature block's street address has also been omitted to match this site's standard convention for the signature line used across every other letter in this archive. Name, email, and the full text of the letter are unchanged. The original signed PDF is available via the Download PDF button above.
June 5, 2026
Dr. Schanfald
Olympic Environmental Council (OEC)
PO Box 2664
Sequim, WA 98382
Port Angeles, Washington
olympicenvironmentalcouncil.org
RE: Port Townsend Paper Company — Request for Olympic Environmental Council (OEC) Support and Guidance — V_1.26
Dear Dr. Schanfald,
I write with a simple and direct request: we want Port Townsend Paper Company (PTPC) to make safety, health, the environment, transparency, and compliance their number one priority. Not their second priority. Not a consideration balanced against production schedules and profit margins. Number one.
I am writing to the Olympic Environmental Council (OEC) because your organization has done what I hope we can do for Port Townsend: hold a kraft pulp mill accountable. Your work forcing the cleanup of the Rayonier mill in Port Angeles — a kraft pulp mill that operated for decades and left a legacy of contamination — is the most directly relevant precedent for what our community is now facing with Port Townsend Paper Company (PTPC).
Port Townsend Paper Company (PTPC) operates a kraft pulp and paper mill on 450 acres bordering Port Townsend Bay. The mill's public compliance record includes:
Clean Air Act (CAA): High Priority Violation (HPV) — the most serious noncompliance classification — every quarter for three consecutive years. Twelve of twelve quarters.
Clean Water Act (CWA): Multiple documented spills into Port Townsend Bay, including approximately 114,000 gallons of untreated wastewater near Glen Cove in April 2025. Fine: $20,000 — less than 9 cents per gallon.
Hazardous Waste (RCRA): June 2025 inspection found 9 violations including emergency preparedness failures.
National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES): permit expired October 2018, renewed May 2025 after 6+ years on administrative extension — during which the mill continued discharging 12 million gallons of effluent into Port Townsend Bay daily.
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) 2024 Port Townsend Health Consultation: hydrogen sulfide, methyl mercaptan, dimethyl sulfide, and dimethyl disulfide measured near the mill above EPA chronic health reference concentrations. On May 26, 2026, eleven workers died at the Nippon Dynawave kraft paper mill in Longview when a white liquor tank imploded. PTPC operates the identical process five miles from Port Townsend Bay. A physical inspection of PTPC’s white liquor storage infrastructure has never been made public. The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) confirmed in 2024 that toxic sulfur compounds near PTPC exceed EPA chronic health reference concentrations. And Port Townsend Paper Company (PTPC) has been in Clean Air Act (CAA) High Priority Violation (HPV) for twelve consecutive quarters.
The Olympic Environmental Council (OEC) has navigated exactly this kind of situation before. You know how to read permit records, how to engage Ecology, how to organize a community, and how to hold a company accountable over the long term.
What I Am Asking:
Share the lessons of the Rayonier campaign — what worked, what didn’t, and what our community should be doing right now
Consider formally writing to the Washington State Department of Ecology requesting independent inspection of PTPC’s white liquor storage infrastructure and strengthened enforcement of PTPC’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit
Consider joining our community coalition — your organizational credibility on Olympic Peninsula kraft mill issues is unmatched
Review PTPC’s current permit conditions and advise whether they are adequate given the ATSDR 2024 findings
I would welcome a call at your earliest convenience. What you built at Rayonier is what Port Townsend needs now.
Respectfully,
David Ginsberg
Port Townsend WA 98368
davidbginsberg@gmail.com