The summaries below are written by this campaign in our own words. They are not reproductions of the original articles. For the complete reporting, photos, and full quotes, please read each piece directly at The Jefferson County Beacon using the links provided.
In July and August 2026, The Jefferson County Beacon, a Jefferson County nonprofit newsroom, published a three-part investigative series examining how the Port Townsend Paper Company (PTPC) is intertwined with the city's water system, its environmental and regulatory record, and its economic role in the county. All three pieces were reported and written by Scott France. We think this is some of the most thorough independent reporting on the mill to date, and we encourage everyone to read it in full on the Beacon's site.
Part 1: Managing a City Water System Amidst a Confluence of External Forces
By Scott France, The Jefferson County Beacon, July 28, 2026
The first article looks at how dependent Port Townsend's drinking water system is on the mill. The city's reservoirs began drawdown roughly three weeks early in the summer of 2026 amid the worst regional snowpack reading in the state, and Public Works Director Steve King called conditions "really, really not a good situation." Under the 2021 Water Supply Agreement, the City can require the mill to curtail water use once reservoir levels hit certain triggers; something it has come close to doing in each of the last two summers. The article details the pipeline's age (some sections date to 1928 and 1946), a rising rate of pipeline breaks, a dam rated "Poor" by the state, and how heavily the pipeline's $161 million long-term maintenance fund depends on roughly $4.5 million a year in payments from the mill. It also covers looming federal permit renewals the water system needs by the end of 2029, and open questions about what happens to the system's finances if the mill's private-equity owner, Atlas Holdings, eventually sells or exits.
Read the full article at The Jefferson County Beacon →
Part 2: An Investigation into the Paper Mill's Operations Reveals Subpar Operational Behavior and Concerning Effects on Ecological and Human Health
By Scott France, The Jefferson County Beacon, August 4, 2026
The second article is the most detailed independent review of PTPC's compliance record published to date. It reports that the Environmental Integrity Project found PTPC in Clean Air Act violation for 11 of the last 12 quarters, placing it among the worst 3 percent of pulp and paper mills nationally for violations, while also recording more enforcement actions than any other U.S. pulp and paper mill over the same five-year period. It documents a May 2026 Notice of Violation over the mill's wastewater treatment pond operating at what regulators called "critically reduced treatment capacity," details the substances found in the mill's bay discharge (including two probable human carcinogens without enforceable numeric limits until 2029), and compares PTPC's aging, uninspected white liquor storage tanks to the tank that failed fatally at the Nippon Dynawave mill in Longview in May 2026. The article also covers a 2018 federal air-quality study that found formaldehyde levels near the mill more than ten times higher than predicted, nearly 2,000 resident odor complaints over five years, and a volunteer community air-monitoring project now getting underway. It directly quotes Washington Department of Ecology regulator Mady Lyon's written response to David Ginsberg, and covers this campaign's petition and requests to PTPC and regulators.
Read the full article at The Jefferson County Beacon →
Part 3: What is Port Townsend Without the Paper Mill?
By Scott France, The Jefferson County Beacon, August 11, 2026
The third article examines the mill's economic footprint and what a closure would mean for the city and county. It cross-checks PTPC's own commissioned economic study and public tax claims against figures from the Jefferson County Assessor, finding several inconsistencies, including that the mill's actual county property tax payment is closer to $340,000 than the $400,000-$4 million figures cited in different company materials. It also covers the mill's role in funding the water system, what would happen to water rates and the county's cardboard recycling stream if the mill closed, the roughly $2-3 million cap on the mill's contract termination liability against a $161 million capital obligation the city is planning around, and legacy environmental cleanup risk, including dioxins reportedly present in the marina and the decades-long, still-unfinished cleanup of the former Rayonier mill site in Port Angeles as a cautionary comparison.
Read the full article at The Jefferson County Beacon →
Sources and Citations
The summaries on this page are drawn from the following sources. Each summary is our own condensation and paraphrase; none of the original text is reproduced here.
- Scott France, "Managing a City Water System Amidst a Confluence of External Forces," The Jefferson County Beacon, July 28, 2026. https://www.jeffcobeacon.com/managing-a-city-water-system-amidst-a-confluence-of-external-forces/
- Scott France, "An Investigation into the Paper Mill's Operations Reveals Subpar Operational Behavior and Concerning Effects on Ecological and Human Health," The Jefferson County Beacon, August 4, 2026. https://www.jeffcobeacon.com/an-investigation-into-the-paper-mills-operations-reveals-subpar-operational-behavior-and-concerning-effects-on-ecological-and-human-health/
- Scott France, "What is Port Townsend Without the Paper Mill?" The Jefferson County Beacon, August 11, 2026. https://www.jeffcobeacon.com/what-is-port-townsend-without-the-paper-mill/