The B-P Paper Company is planning to build a new papermaking facility on property it owns in the Atlanta, Georgia, area that borders on the Chattahoochee River. The facility will have an industrial boiler that burns wood wastes to generate process steam for plant operation and will emit sulfur oxides, nitrogen oxides, and particulate emissions to the air. The company plans to draw water from the river to use in the papermaking process and will return it to the river after some in-house treatment to remove some of the pollutants that have been added by the process. Significant quantities of sludge from the papermaking process will have to be disposed of, as well as empty containers in which the chlorine used at the facility was delivered.
What major requirements will the facility have to meet to control its anticipated air emissions?
What major requirements will the facility have to meet to control its discharge of wastewater to the Chattahoochee River?
What major requirements will the company have to meet in dealing with the waste sludge and containers?
If the company realizes that some materials it releases into the environment pose a hazard to human health or the environment but are not currently subject to regulation, does the company have an ethical obligation to take steps to protect against those hazards?
