NCS000151_Staff Report_20190715

NC Division of Energy, Mineral and Land Resources
Review for Permit Renewal — NCS000151
Arauco Panels USA LLC
Moncure, NC
Facility Activities and Process:
• SIC Code: 2493. Manufacturing of reconstituted wood products.
• The facility manufactures wood composite panels and products. Arauco Panels USA, LLC
operates a particleboard Mill and medium density particleboard Mill.
• The facility discharges to Shaddox Creek, a class WS-IV stream in the Cape Fear River Basin.
• The facility also has a wastewater and a non -discharge spray irrigation permit.
• Special note: the site does not have to submit monthly wastewater DMR. This waiver is only for
wastewater.
Monitoring Information:
• The site has a wastewater permit (WQ0003396) and there are several wastewater lagoons
onsite.
• Yvonne Couts provided monitoring data back through 2009.
• There are two outfalls at the site (006 and 004).
• There have been consistent exceedances of COD, BOD, TKN, Total Nitrogen, and TSS for almost
every year since 2009, at both outfalls. There have been multiple exceedances of pH, where the
pH went above 9
• Tier monitoring events appear to have taken place in 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2017. However,
parameter values still exceeded benchmark values during each event.
• When asked if Arauco had informed DEQ about the exceedances per pg 8 of the 2010 permit,
Yvonne Couts claimed Arauco sent notification to DEQ regarding stormwater exceedances
through their NPDES permit modification application in 2016. The application outlined the
nutrient loading reduction to the stormwater if we were able to modify our existing permit and
run a full biological wastewater system.
o "Arauco is proposing management through offsets: Arauco is proposing to eliminate the
irrigation of wastewater on the fields and cease farming the proposed property if an
NPDES Permit can be granted for discharge of treated effluent to surface water. The
proposed strategy will include installation of a new wastewater treatment system that
can produce higher effluent water quality than the current treatment plant. The result
will be a significant net reduction in TN to the Cape Fear River Basin."
o "In discussion of offsets, Arauco proposes offsetting nutrients from runoff from
agricultural fields by treating wastewater to a higher water quality, thereby, reducing
the input of nutrients to the basin. One of the goals of the policy is to achieve early
reductions and progress towards water quality standards pending development of
TMDLs for impaired waters, thus, an effort to reduce TN input to the basin will achieve
this goal."
Surface Water Information:

• Shaddox Creek is not listed as an impaired water; however, immediately downstream the creek
converges with the Haw River, which converges immediately with the Haw and Deep Rivers
which becomes the Cape Fear River. At this location, the Cape Fear River is impaired due to high
pH and Chlorophyll a. Algal blooms have bene common in this area of the Cape Fear River.
Discussions with the Facility:
• Contact was made with the facility over phone and email was made on 4/11/2019 and
monitoring data was received on 4/26/2019.
Regional Office Information:
Sent to Regional Office Contact, Thad Valentine, on 4/15/2019.