MILL REPORT

ABITIBI CONSOLIDATED’S MILL

IN SNOWFLAKE, AZ, CONVERTS
TO 100% RECYCLING
DONALD G. MEADOWS

NEWSPRINT MILL THRIVES IN THE HIGH DESERT

A
T FIRST SIGHT, YOU MIGHT QUESTION THE WISDOM OF In 1998, the Snowflake mill was purchased by Mon-
the men who decided to build a pulp and treal-based Abitibi Consolidated Corporation, the world's
paper mill in leading manufacturer of
eastern Arizona. newsprint.
For miles and Stone agreed to sell
miles west of the Snowflake newsprint
Snowflake the high desert operations to Abitibi Con-
offers little more than solidated in September
scrub. But further west, to- 1998 for US$ 250 million.
ward Heber and beyond, is The deal included two
the largest Ponderosa pine newsprint machines with a
forest in North America. combined annual capacity
For years and years, a of 287,000 metric tons,
thriving sawmill business along with the 56 MW
survived on wood from power plant and the 38-
the national forests that mile Apache Railway. Stone
extend down from retained ownership of the
Flagstaff to Payson. Those 124,000 metric ton/year,
forests also fed the No. 2 corrugating medium
A view from Snowflake’s new “woodyard” (above) showing the
Snowflake mill. Environ- machine, which Abitibi
FiberFlow Drum for recycling newsprint; and a view of the land-
mental concerns increas- Consolidated operates.
scape around the mill site (below).
ingly limited the supply of Snowflake is the only
wood available for lumber newsprint mill in the inner
and for pulping, especially Rockies region. Most of its
in recent years. Injunctions paper is shipped to print-
to protect the habitat of ing plants in the desert
the Mexican spotted owl Southwest. Roughly half
and other species consid- goes by truck and half by
ered endangered halted rail.
logging in 11 national The mill has three
forests in Arizona and new paper machines, two of
Mexico in the mid-1990s. which are used for
The mill is also located newsprint. All three are
over the Coconino Aquifer, equipped with Beloit Con-
giving it an abundant verflo headboxes.
source of well water.

40 TAPPI JOURNAL APRIL 2000

 The No. 1 and No. 2 machines were built by Beloit in
1961.The No. 1 fourdrinier machine was converted from
newsprint to linerboard production in 1976, then con-
verted back to newsprint in 1982 with the addition of a
Beloit Bel-Bond top-former. It trims at 239-in. and pro-
duces 360 tons/day.
The No. 2 machine was first used to produced liner-
board using two head boxes. In 1997, it began using
100% recycled OCC to produce 355 tons/day of corru-
gating medium, trimmed at 155-in.The secondary Sulzer
Escher Wyss CV headbox has been removed and is stored
away. It has an open draw press and open dryer section
with 50 cans.
The No. 3 paper machine was started up in 1975 to
produce newsprint. It has a Bel Baie II former and trims
at 304-in (7.72 m). It runs at 3400 ft/min, producing
about 525 tons/day (478 metric tons/day).
Both newsprint machines have Tri-nip presses and
Super L winders.
Although the equipment is relatively standard, it’s the
people at the mill who’ve made the real difference in
Snowflake’s success, said Sue Bingham, the mill’s quality
assurance manager. For four years in a row Snowflake has
been identified as “the suppplier who provides the most
satisfaction in terms of
newsprint,” she said. “I
think having the two
A maze of temporary scaf- newsprint machines also
folding surrounds the high makes us more aware of
density chest for the DI 3 some of the quality is-
during construction, above, sues associated with roll
while a workman welds finishing and what have
some of the new piping dur- you, on the medium ma-
ing construction of the new chine.”
high density chest, at right, One of the mill’s
and a view of the deinking strong points, based on
clarifier shared by DI 2 and customer satisfaction
DI 3, below. surveys, is the arrival
condition and timeliness
of deliveries, Bingham
said. Shipping is often a
“forgotten” area in mills, she noted. Snowflake realized
how important it is, however, and over the last 15 years
has put a lot of time and effort into improving the look
of packages and making sure they get to customers in
good condition.
The quality of the product is reflected in its perfor-
mance on the printing press. Even before the most recent
improvements at the mill, the San Antonio Express News
ran 877 rolls from Snowflake without a break, Bingham
reported.

VOL. 83: NO. 4 TAPPI JOURNAL 41

 MILL REPORT

THE END OF THE KRAFT MILL A major component installed that year is an Ahlstrom
During the summer of 1999, the last few logs were FiberFlow Drum pulper.With a daily capacity of 950 tons,
cleared from Snowflake’s woodyard. Plans called for the it was, at the time of installation, the largest of its kind in
mill’s groundwood and wood yard operations to be com- North America.The unit combines a conventional pulper,
pletely shut down in July during the final phase of a con- a pulper screen, a drum screen, and a dump chest into a
version to 100% recycling. single piece of equipment.
At one time, the kraft pulp mill produced 550 An AhlFloat dissolved air floatation clarifier was in-
tons/day of bleached softwood pulp with six batch di- stalled to allow process water from the gravity decker of
gesters. With the closure of the kraft mill, various struc- the No. 2 deinking line to be reused 5 to 12 times before
tures and pieces of equipment were being removed, in- being discharged as effluent. Start-up was in June 1997.
cluding the lime kilns.The final disposition of the recov- Bingham reports that the new 100% recycled paper
ery boiler had not been determined. “appears to be about 25% stronger than prior to the re-
configuration.” It also lints less, perhaps half as much the
100% RECYCLING previous product, while the coefficient of friction is sig-
In 1997, the Snowflake mill recycled nearly 500,000 tons nificantly higher. Indications are that process yield for DI
of paper. Installation of a US$ 15 million deinking system No. 3 is more than expected, a further plus for the
and upgrades to its existing deinking system have given project.
the mill the capacity to go 100% recycled.

LARRY STANLEY—GENERAL MANAGER as co-project manager in a project to upgrade the No.

Lawrence A. Stanley, general manager for Abitibi Con- 1 deinking system to current technology and increase
solidated’s Snowflake Division, has worked at the mill capacity.
since it was started by Southwest Forest Industry in In January of 1989, Stanley was reassigned to Jack-
1963. He worked in various positions in the mill’s sonville, FL, as general manager of Seminole Kraft Cor-
maintenance department, from maintenance me- poration, a subsidiary of Stone Container Corporation.
chanic to general maintenance superintendent. During his tenure in this position he managed the con-
Stanley served on the start-up and optimization version from the 100% virgin fiber kraft linerboard and
team for a major mill expansion during 1974--1975. kraft paper operation to 100% recycled fiber-based op-
The project included a power generation system, kraft eration, making it the largest recycle fiber paper mill in
pulping system, kraft-recovery system, waste corru- the world. During this period he helped establish a
gated system, No. 1 deinking system and the No. 3 250-megawatt co-generating facility on the Jack-
newsprint machine. sonville mill site with U.S. Generating.
Stanley later served as co-project manager from Stanley returned to the Snowflake Mill in 1993 as
1980 through 1982 of a US$ 50 million project that in- general manager.
cluded an additional deinking system (DI 2) and a re- Since his return,
build of the No. 1 newsprint machine at the he has been in-
Snowflake mill. Concurrent with this project, he was volved in major
promoted to general paper machine superintendent projects to bring
and assigned responsibility for the operation of the the mill to the
three paper machines, stock preparation, finishing forefront for re-
and shipping. cycling and
In 1987, Stanley was promoted to manager of deinking tech-
maintenance and engineering at the Snowflake mill, nology. He has
during which time he played a key role in design, in- remained in
strumentation and start up of an automated central- charge of the
ized newsprint roll wrapping and roll tracking system. mill following
Following the acquisition of the Snowflake mill by the purchase by
Stone Corporation in 1987, Stanley was promoted to Abitibi-Consoli- Larry Stanley (left), Snowflake’s general
production manager.While in this position, he served dated in 1998. manager, with Scott Cook, production
manager.

42 TAPPI JOURNAL APRIL 2000

A special system was installed at the mill to remove the baling The Ahlstrom FiberFlow Drum line (above) and one of the fire
wire from newsprint shipped in for recycling. hose stations in the bale storage yard.

systems, with a combined capacity of 618 OD metric

THE MILL TODAY tons/day.With the new DI 3, Snowflake will have a total
The mill has four Babcock & Wilcox boilers—two deinking capacity of 1002 OD metric tons/day.
power boilers and two idled recovery boilers. The “We had an overcapacity OCC plant,” Bingham noted.
350,000 lb/hr and 800,000 lb/hr power boilers are fired The mill added flotation to the existing OCC equipment,
using natural gas and bituminous coal brought in from and a thickener, so that it could be used for deinking
the Navaho lands to the north. The mill’s two turbine newsprint. The plan then called for the existing DI 1 to
generators are identical to those used by electrical utili- become No. 2 OCC.“Basically we’re flip-flopping,” Bing-
ties.The smaller one, a 25 MW Westinghouse model, dates ham said.The OCC plant will convert to DI 3, the No. 1
back to 1961.The other, manufactured by GE, is rated at DI plant was converted to OCC,“and that's strictly a ca-
44 MW. The mill also uses up to 12 MW from the local pacity issue,” she said.
utility, though it’s quick to disconnect when summer When originally built, the idea was that the No. 1 and
thunder storms pass through. No. 2 paper machines would be converted to corrugating
medium—that was at the height of the corrugating
RECENT PROJECTS medium market... “That sort of fell apart and we're still
Construction of a high density chest for DI 3, part of a making newsprint,” Bingham said. So the logical thing is
US$ 23 million project to allow Snowflake to produce to use that capacity to process newsprint.
100% recycled newsprint, was scheduled to be com- An existing FiberFlow Drum pulper feeds DI 2 and DI
pleted in July. The chest holds about a day’s worth of 3.A number of older, smaller, low-consistency, high-shear
production—roughly 700 short tons of pulp. type pulpers are in place as backup, and would be fed a
As of last summer, the mill had five active pulping specially segregated furnish. In contrast, the FiberFlow is
areas, with two deinking systems. DI 1, started in 1975 as very low shear, high-consistency pulper. “So instead of
a washing only system. Since then it’s gone through sev- chopping up plastic bags, it spits out the whole bag at
eral rebuilds. It and DI 2 are standard flotation/washing the back end,” Bingham said.

VOL. 83: NO. 4 TAPPI JOURNAL 43

 MILL REPORT

FACES OF THE SNOWFLAKE MILL: Clockwise, from upper

right, Rick Robertson (right), No. 3 machine superintendent,
stands with “Big John” Robinson, shift supervisor (left), who has
worked at Snowflake since the mill's start-up in 1961. Lonnie
Voosen, senior process engineer, uses the technical department’s
new TSO/TSI tester to measure fiber orientation in paper sam-
ple.W. Finner and crew monitor the mill’s power requirements.
Faye Fisk, recycle paper coordinator, checks the quality of bales
received by the mill. Carl Yellowhair grabs a wrapped roll for
shipment. Skip Hellerud, environmental and technical manager,
with trophies won by the mill. Gordon Green (front) and Jeff Ly-
dolph in the machine control room.

44 TAPPI JOURNAL APRIL 2000

 The DLK (double-line clippings) plant—the prede-
cessor to the OCC plant—was being used to process
market pulp following the shutdown of the kraft pulping
operations. The shutdown left the mill short about 100
tons/day until recycling capacity was increased.An idled
CEPH bleach plant was dismantled and stored as part of
the kraft pulping shutdown.

BIOMASS IRRIGATION & EFFLUENT REUSE

The Snowflake mill has received a number of awards in
recognition for its environmental efforts. In 1998 it
earned a first from Keep America Beautiful for its “re-
duce, reuse, recycle”initiatives.That same year, the mill re-
ceived the Arizona Farm Bureau’s award for environmen-
tal enhancement.
In 1997, Stone Container received the Governor’s
Pride in Arizona Award for developing an environmen-
tally sound way to reuse treated water from its mill op-
erations. Instead of sending the effluent to nearby Dry
Lake to evaporate, the precious water was being used to
grow feed crops on a five square mile biomass plantation
that straddles Arizona State Highway 377.
The program was initiated in 1989. Experimental
plantings began in 1990, but it wasn’t until 1992 that the
first 500 acres were cultivated near the ghost-town of
Zeniff. The area for use was expanded to 3100 acres in
1996.
The process is fairly simple. The clarified effluent is
filtered and potentially harmful salts are removed. The
water is then routed through culverts and control gates
to the fields as needed.
The treatment system was developed in conjunction
with the Northern Arizona University School of Forestry.
Students from the university set up a small compound on
the plantation to study the types of vegetation and plan-
tation designs that would most effectively absorb the
water and grow on the site, said Skip Hellerud, the mill’s
environmental and technical manager.
At least 150 varieties of trees and crops have been
tested at the site. While the mill was still pulping wood,
there was interest in fast growing trees, such as cotton-
wood, as well as black locust and Russian olive. Most of
the cultivated land is now used to grow crops such as al-
falfa and sordan (a sorghum-sudan grass hybrid).
As a further benefit, the area around the plantation, in-
cluding Twin Lake and Dry Lake, has become something
of a wildlife refuge, Bingham said. Several hundred elk fre-
quent the plantation, as do hawks, eagles, coyotes, and
other animals.
The Snowflake mill also plays a significant role in Ari-
zona’s overall recycling effort. Without the mill, it might
be prohibitively expensive to collect recyclable
newsprint throughout the state and then ship it to recy-

VOL. 83: NO. 4 TAPPI JOURNAL 45

 MILL REPORT

Machine tenders trim a reel on the finishing end. A control gate for one of the irrigation ditches.

cling facilities elsewhere in the nation.With Snowflake’s

Meadows is editor of TAPPI JOURNAL; email: [email protected].
move to 100% recycling, the environmental benefits
Photos: Don Meadows, David Windmyer, and others.
stand out even more.TJ

THE APACHE RAILWAY

Ray West has an obvious fondness for trains, and a par- it has been running. Its RS-36s have been taken out of
ticular fondness for the Apache Railway.As transporta- service and are being used for spare parts. It both
tion manager, he watches over the men and equip- owns and leases railcars.
ment that haul freight to and from the main rail line at The Apache Railway serves as a repair and main-
Holbrook and the Snowflake mill. tenance center for the BNSF. Its locomotive and car
The shortline is also a favorite of rail fans who sta- repair shop can do major rebuilds, though much of
tion themselves to snap pictures along the route north the work involves changing out wheel sets, replac-
of the mill to Holbrook where the shortline connects ing freight car doors, and repairing various types of
with the Burlington Northern-Sante Fe (BNSF). The damage.
green-and-white ALCo engines used by the railway “are West’s crews also include five people in the loco-
quite a deal with the fans,” West noted. Three-man motive shop, eight in the car repair shop, nine in the
crews make the run about five times a week. maintenance department, and seven in administra-
The Apache recently acquired three 2400 hp Cana- tion. The employees are represented by two unions
dian Pacific C-424 ALCo engines, adding to four C420s and have worked under a six-year contract.

The newest engines of the Apache Railway. Ray West in the rail maintenance building at Snowflake.

46 TAPPI JOURNAL APRIL 2000