By, Rob Kreizenbeck, CEO, Port Townsend Paper Company
The fatal incident at the Nippon Dynawave mill in Longview was a tragedy for the workers, families and surrounding community. It has understandably raised questions about safety across Washington’s pulp and paper industry, including here in Port Townsend.
Those questions deserve direct, fact-based answers. But the people who run the Port Townsend Paper mill also deserve to be judged fairly. They should not have their commitment to safety, environmental responsibility or this community diminished by claims that omit relevant facts, conflate our mill with an unrelated tragedy or treat disputed allegations as established conclusions.
Our employees are skilled professionals and dedicated neighbors. They hike in these woods, fish in these waters, send their children to local schools, coach local sports teams and volunteer throughout the region. They arrive at the mill every day focused on operating safely, protecting the environment and improving a facility that will celebrate its 100th anniversary next year.
That perspective has too often been absent from the recent media coverage. And as CEO, I believe our community deserves to hear directly from us about the questions that have been raised, the facts we have established, the improvements underway and the people doing this work every day.
The November 2025 incident
Recent media coverage questioned the accuracy of our report concerning a leak in the mill’s effluent-processing system. The company’s relationship with the former employee quoted in that coverage is more complex than the article described, and we deny that he was separated for any concerns he raised. However, we do not intend to litigate personnel matters in the newspaper.
The mill has reviewed the incident three times. The initial investigation occurred in November 2025, when the mill identified, contained, and reported the leak under its established protocol. The former employee participated in that investigation and contributed information used in the report. The mill reviewed the incident again in July after the former employee raised concerns and said he intended to provide additional information to the media that he did not provide directly to the company.
We conducted a third review after obtaining that additional information from the Washington Department of Ecology through a public-records request. Based on the information currently available to us, we found nothing that would materially change the report filed in November.
The leak occurred within our effluent-processing system, was contained and was self-reported. Based on all three reviews, the event was limited in magnitude and did not involve an area of the process expected to pose a significant environmental risk.
It is fair to scrutinize our report. It is not fair to portray unverified estimates as settled fact, imply that the mill ignored concerns or use an unrelated tragedy elsewhere in the industry to sensationalize an unrelated event at our facility. The mill should be judged on the evidence specific to our operation.
Improving workplace safety
Our employees have made substantial progress in workplace safety. Our incident rate is approximately one-third of what it was four years ago, and last year our workforce set an all-time mill record for safe days worked.
Those results did not happen by accident. They reflect the daily attention and effort of our employees, including the members of United Steelworkers Local 175. One incident is still one too many. We begin every day with safety as a central priority, and we continue to invest in safer equipment, stronger systems, and employee training. The tragedy at the Nippon Dynawave mill in Longview was devastating. Although our Port Townsend mill was not involved in that incident, every serious event in our industry presents an obligation to learn.
Tank integrity was already an established program at our mill. Since the Longview incident, we have performed additional inspections and accelerated upgrades. During our recently completed annual outage, where we close our operations to review our equipment so we can inspect, maintain and improve equipment, we upgraded four tanks. We are also collaborating weekly with the Washington Department of Labor & Industries as it studies mill tank maintenance and operations.
Our safety record should be examined closely. But it should be examined on its own merits and not through generalizations that disregard the work our employees have done or presume that every mill presents the same conditions.
The mill’s environmental performance
Our environmental record should also be considered in its full context. Since January 2025, the mill has experienced only six minor water quality exceedances among the eight primary effluent parameters we monitor in our permit. The mill was within its daily limits 99.8% of the time and remained below all monthly and annual effluent permit limits.
Ecology recently assessed a penalty exceeding $700,000 against the mill. Less than 10% of that amount concerns four days of minor daily discharge-limit exceedances in April. We have since added automation and monitoring to address these issues in the future. The remainder of the penalty concerns Ecology’s misinterpretation of our treatment pond maintenance protocols rather than an exceedance of the mill’s monthly or annual water quality limits.
We disagree with many aspects of Ecology’s findings and with the scale of the penalty, and we are exercising our right to appeal. We respect Ecology’s regulatory responsibilities and continue to communicate openly with its staff. Our appeal will address our concerns through the established legal and administrative process. While we may strongly disagree with Ecology’s conclusions, we believe the most constructive course is to focus on the technical record rather than speculate about political motives.
The pond and effluent system presented challenges for years before Atlas Holdings acquired the mill in late 2022. Under the current ownership, dredging began in 2024, first through contractors and then with mill-owned equipment. We have also installed a newer solids press and rebuilt our clarifier. The system has improved, and a major dredging operation is scheduled to begin this fall. Altogether, we expect to invest approximately $11 million in this work. The system is on track to enter 2027 in significantly better condition.
Safety, environmental responsibility, and economic value belong together
Some commentary has suggested that the mill’s economic benefits are irrelevant if they come at the expense of worker safety or environmental integrity. We agree with the underlying principle: no economic benefit justifies sacrificing people’s safety or the environment. Where we differ is the suggestion that such a tradeoff is inevitable. We believe responsible manufacturing, good union jobs and environmental progress can, and must, coexist.
Atlas Holdings has invested substantially in the mill since acquiring it in 2022. The management team combines longstanding employees with newer leaders, many of whom are from Washington and the broader Pacific Northwest. Together with our USW workforce, we are prioritizing maintenance and improving safety, reliability and environmental performance at the facility.
A regional circular economy
What most people don’t realize is that the mill recycles approximately 450 million pounds of used cardboard annually and converts that material into new packaging. Roughly two-thirds of the boxes we produce in our internal system support the food supply chain. The new wood fiber used in our pulp primarily comes from byproducts generated by Northwest sawmills. We convert those residual materials into useful paper products and biofuel-derived energy rather than leaving them as waste streams.
Improvements to our boilers have increased reliability and reduced fossil-fuel use by approximately 40% since 2022. Our supply chain is also regional: fiber is collected locally, and approximately 75% of our finished paper and box products remain in the Pacific Northwest and British Columbia. The mill supports many of the remaining union manufacturing jobs on the Olympic Peninsula.
This year, the mill and USW employees renewed a four-year labor agreement providing competitive wages and benefits. The mill also pays approximately 91% of the cost of the Olympic Gravity Water System, which delivers water to Port Townsend and supports the surrounding community. Our economic and infrastructure contributions are not a substitute for strong safety and environmental performance, but they are part of an honest assessment of the mill’s role.
Our path forward
This is an older facility. After all, we’ve been around for nearly 100 years. We will not pretend every problem has been solved. We are working aggressively to maintain and enhance our operations, while investing in the systems that protect our employees and environment, and making measurable progress.
What we will say, and demonstrate, is that our employees are working hard to make the mill safer, more reliable and environmentally stronger. They have reduced our incident rate, set a record for safe days worked, replaced critical equipment, improved the effluent system, reduced fossil-fuel use and kept hundreds of millions of pounds of cardboard in productive circulation.
Those accomplishments should not exempt us from scrutiny. But neither should they be erased by incomplete reporting, politically convenient narratives or claims that have not survived careful review.
We will continue to investigate credible concerns, cooperate with regulators, correct the record when evidence requires it and challenge claims that are unsupported or presented out of context. We will continue investing in our employees, infrastructure, environmental systems and community.
Most importantly, we will stand up for the people who operate this mill. They are not abstractions in a political debate or collateral damage in a sensational headline. They are skilled union workers, families and neighbors who care deeply about safety, the environment and the future of this community.
Port Townsend Paper has a positive story to tell. This is not because our work is finished, but because our people are doing the hard work of improving this mill every day. We deserve to have that work judged fairly, in context and on the facts.