Domtar is praising investments made at the pulp mill to reduce environmental impacts, including emissions and odour, in Kamloops.

At city council this week, Domtar’s environmental manager Kirstin Dangelmaier said emissions are down as much as 70 per cent in the last seven years.

“Last year, each quarter our particulate testing performances were completed, and you’ll see that there was a drop in the third and the fourth quarters,” she said.

“That drop was specifically a 20 per cent improvement over the previous results earlier in the year, and a direct outcome of the investments that we made in our precipitator.”

Investments last year include $2.5 million on a new bleach plant scrubber which has eliminated the use of liquid sulfur dioxide in the manufacturing process.

“We conducted some post start up testing and that testing confirmed that the scrubbers met all of our expectations for efficiency effectiveness with our bleach plant,” Danglemaier added.

“So not only were we collecting more, but we’re actually collecting more of our emissions.”

She told council that liquid sulfur dioxide was the most hazardous chemical at the mill.