‘Sorry, we have to postpone.’ I must say, I was disappointed and a little suspicious. We had travelled especially to Fray Bentos to see Botnia, the Finnish pulp mill which has received World Bank funding. Apparently, a routine maintenance stop had lasted longer than expected, and they were in full ‘start-up’. They told us they could not receive visitors for safety reasons. Bet it’s because it smells, I thought. But there was no smell in the town, and none when we drove right past the factory entrance. We couldn’t see much because there was thick fog. And it was dead quiet. Hmm, I reckon they haven’t really started up, I thought.

[More:]

‘We’ll fly you there any day next week,’ they said. We opted for Friday.

Friday came, a gloomy, grey winter’s day, but with good enough visibility. The organizers phoned us. ‘Sorry, we can’t go just now; there’s mist in Fray Bentos. It would be dangerous. We’ll reassess the situation later.’ And similar phone calls came every hour until it was too late to go. This stinks, I thought. ‘We’ll go tomorrow,’ they said.

The next day was bright and sunny. I wonder how they’ll get out of it this time, I wondered. But very soon we were on a tiny plane flying over vineyards and orchards to the west of Montevideo. This gradually changed to grassland, and after an hour, we started seeing eucalyptus forests, with trees at various stages of growth.

Botnia Forestation

‘Those belong to Botnia,’ we were told. A few minutes later, we had a superb view of the futuristic plant. I was surprised to see no smoke.

Botnia: you can see the outskirts of Fray Bentos to the right

I was excited. This was the one trip I felt was needed to complete my time in Uruguay, and my vision of this small country which had been my home for four years. I needed to see the place for myself.

There was huge controversy over the building of the Finnish pulp mill. The World Bank had done very detailed impact studies before agreeing to fund the project, which is the largest foreign investment Uruguay has seen. Two years ago Argentine protestors blocked the bridge linking the two countries, severely affecting tourism in Uruguay. They said Botnia and another pulp mill planned by the Spanish firm ENCE would damage the river and its tributaries and harm the livelihoods of local people. They were under the impression that the plant would use technology which is outdated in Europe. A few days previously we had visited the original ENCE site, and were told that ENCE had pulled out of the area because their smaller plant would not be viable.

In March last year, Greenpeace used the Fray Bentos plant as a forum to attract attention to the destruction of ancient forests around the world, particularly in northern Lapland. Apparently Greenpeace’s action was beneficial to the plant: they were demanding coordinated policies between Botnia and the old Argentine pulp mills upriver.

Greenpeace soon left, but the Argentine protestors remained, until they were needed elsewhere, leaving a lone woman and her mobile phone stopping Uruguay-bound traffic leaving the town of Gualeyguachu, thirty kilometers away.

I thought we would see banners, graffiti, perhaps a few local protestors, but there were none.

Air Traffic Controller Taking a Break Outside Fray Bentos Airport Building

There was little action at the town’s airstrip.

Traffic on the Runway

And I was expecting a smell. ‘We said from the beginning there would be a smell,’ we were told as we drove up to the plant. ‘There is always a smell in parts of the factory. We predicted that the smell would reach the town at some point in four days over a year. In our first eight months of operation, it has reached the town once, on 27 April.’ People describe the smell as that of boiling cabbage. When I walked through the huge front entrance, I could detect a whiff: it seemed more to me more like damp seaweed, faint, and not unpleasant.

The mill was in full production.

We were accompanied by the Managing Director and a young Finnish technician, and we saw every part of the process, from the logs coming in on trucks to the fine grainy cardboard-like sheets leaving the plant on barges.

We saw graphs that showed the all the results of environmental tests on the river, air and soil since 2005. ‘What do you do with the stuff that spews out?’ I asked. ‘Stuff doesn’t spew out,’ I was told. ‘You’ll see.’

And we did. In one area the smell was stronger. That was where we saw huge furnaces where black liquor, a by-product of the process, is burnt to produce electricity. The plant generates its own energy from renewable sources, and the surplus electricity generated is sold to UTE, the national electricity company, providing for 4% of the Uruguay’s supply – enough for three towns the size of Fray Bentos. Uruguay cannot provide enough hydroelectricity for its needs, and this biofuel reduces the country’s dependence on dirty fuels.

We saw the bleaching area, where no elemental chlorine is used. In most areas there was no smell at all, such as in the office, canteen, many outside ares, and the Nasa-meets-Finnish design control room where young technicians watch every part of the process on screens

,

The canteen where we had lunch

We were told that the emissions from the Fray Bentos mill are among the cleanest in the world. Air emissions of odorous compounds have been virtually eliminated thanks to advanced chemical recovery technologies.

In the drying area there was noise, but not loud enough for me to need to wear the ear muffs proveded. I saw no smoke: there is more coming out of the average Uruguayan’s domestic barbecue chimney. I saw some steam.

Steam at Botnia

So why did Botnia choose Uruguay, and more particularly, Fray Bentos, for its plant? Is it an example of exploitation of a small South American country? Is there danger of desertification? Before visiting the plant I had heard two conflicting versions on the issue of forestry: the mill would use up any remaining natural forest, or it would plant so many trees that there would be no space left for cows. However, I learnt that Uruguay has had a strict forestry policy for the last twenty years, and only certain areas, which are not suitable for rearing cattle or planting crops, have been designated for planting trees. Natural forest occupies 4% of the land in Uruguay. None of this is used for forestry. Eucalyptus planted for the forestry industry takes up another 4% of the land, and 4% more can potentially be planted. Botnia owns 70% of the trees it uses, and buys the rest from local producers. This long-established policy, together with the ready availability of wood, made the country an ideal choice.

Also, Uruguay has high rainfall, about three times that of Australia. Eucalyptus trees grow three times as fast as in many places. Do they drink up all the available water? Uruguay is sitting on the Guaraní aquifer, one of the world’s largest water resources. The water is renewed regularly by rainfall, and most just flows out into the river.

The site at Fray Bentos provides excellent water transport: the pulp is taken down to the port of Nueva Palmeras by barge, and exported by ship from there.

Additionally, Uruguay is a country with political, economic, cultural and social stability, where production costs are low and education levels high. It provides an excellent employment market. During the initial phases, there were many Finnish employees, and a Finnish school was even set up for their children. Now about half a dozen remain, and the rest of the employees are Uruguayan.

Workers taking a mate break

But what about water pollution, one factor that the Argentines were highlighting? Faced with the prospect of accepting such a controversial industry to its shores, Uruguay took serious measures. Environmental standards are higher than any in Europe. LATU (Technological Laboratory of Uruguay) opened a new centre in Fray Bentos in 2007. The idea was to decentralise operations from Montevideo, and offer specialised local employment to young people in the area. The laboratory has world-class equipment which not only offers services of quality control to the cellulose, forestry and food industries in the area, but also carries out rigorous environmental tests on the soil, water and air. There are sixteen monitoring stations for water all along the river, and a unique air quality control tower. The Biotechnology lab works in conjunction with the University of the Republic and the Pasteur Institute in Montevideo. Results from the laboratory show that the water coming out from the plant is cleaner than the water going in.

LATU Lab Worker

The Rio Uruguay is huge: the flow of water per second is sixty times that of rivers in Europe on which pulp mills are sited. Any organic matter flowing into the Rio Uruguay is rapidly diluted.

Last week a group of Argentine engineers went to visit the plant. The press reported that they had concluded that the plant has no environmentally damaging effect on the environment in either Uruguay or Argentina.

And visual pollution, another point of contention with Argentina? Opposite the plant, on the Argentine side, there are two huge estancias: hundreds of thousands of hectares devoted to rearing cattle.

View of Argentina Across the River

Apparently, from one tiny beach, if you crane your neck (we saw the beach through binoculars), you can see the plant. We could not see the town of Gualeyguachu from the air.

What effect has the pulp mill had on the town of Fray Bentos? After the collapse of the meat packing industry, it had become a ghost town. During the plant construction phase, 5,000 people were employed. Now, over 4,000 people are employed in direct association with Botnia, either at the plant or in the forestry industry. This includes truck drivers, and the people that clean the impeccable canteen windows.

Botnia Windows

Almost 4,000 jobs are indirectly associated with the plant. These include employment at the local hotel, for example.

Botnia works in conjunction with the local town council. The plant’s effluent treatment plant will soon be extended to treat waste from Fray Bentos. At present, the town’s sewage goes straight into the river at Las Cañas, a smart beach-front suburb where many people have holiday homes. Botnia is planning to build an eight kilometre conduit to pipe all the town’s effluents to its plant for treatment.

The company has refurbished the local town hotel, whose business boomed during the construction phase. The town and the plant are hoping its success will continue with planned development in tourism.

Reception, Gran Hotel, Fray Bentos

Tours will take students and visitors around the plant, and to the Anglo, the shell of the old Fray Bentos meat-processing plant which has recently been converted into an industrial museum.

The Anglo Industrial Museum

This will also mean that local guides will be trained.

The Argentine blockage of the bridge has actually benefited the town’s small commercial businesses: whereas local people used to hope over the bridge to buy cheaper produce in Gualeyguachu, they are now forced to patronise their own shops.

The Bridge

During the construction phase, Botnia built 220 new homes for its workers. Afterwards many of these were not needed, and were handed over to the town council, who are selling them to private buyers.

A Botnia-Built House

The profits will go to building low-cost housing. Because of co-operation between the private and pubic sectors, with their development foresight, Fray Bentos, unlike other growing towns in Uruguay, has no shanty areas.

Naturally, it is Botnia’s interest to co-operate with the town. But its spin-off is important for the local population, and everyone benefits. It’s a win-win situation. The world needs paper, and pulp is being produced here at the lowest possible economic and environmental cost. And all the figures show that on balance, Botnia’s impact on the environment is positive.

Note: all photos by Paola

For more information, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellulose_plant_conflict_between_Argentina_and_Uruguay