The City of Kalamazoo says it’s possible not much of an "industrial process wastewater" spill at a paper plant reached the Kalamazoo River. But the city says it still urges people to stay away from the river between the D Avenue and Paterson Street bridges until further notice.
Baker said because of a mechanical issue at the plant, yesterday some of the wastewater instead spilled into a storm sewer. But city crews were able to divert some of it.
The rough estimate of how much process water made it to the river is between 1500 and 2000 gallons. But it could be less, Baker said.
“There is some thought that we were able to capture some of that with our crew’s kind of quick reaction to provide that pump to intercept and then bring that back to the treatment plant,” he explained.
Baker said the process water doesn’t look or smell much different than just plain water, but it appears to have some paper particles and possibly plastic in it.
“Unfortunately it got out and so we want to make sure we’re protecting public health to all extents possible and want to conduct some sampling events just to make sure,” Baker said.
He added that industrial process water from GPI goes to the wastewater treatment plant but doesn't normally need especially heavy treatment there.
Baker said no one on the response team has seen any indication the spill has harmed wildlife.
Baker said the Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy is involved in the response. The agency’s Kalamazoo District Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
