What happens when your pristine surf break in Newport, Oregon becomes the dumping ground for a private company’s toxic waste? What happens when a surf trip to Southern Chile or Northern Tasmania goes belly up because you were chased out of the water by the overpowering scent of sulfur, dioxin and bleach?

For surfers and environmental activists in Newport, Oregon, Cobquecura, Chile and Northern Tasmania, enough is enough. They are joining forces to share knowledge and resources in their fight to protect and preserve our oceans, waves, beaches and watersheds.

It started with Peter Whish-Wilson, a Surfrider Australia activist and leader of the Northern Tasmania Branch of the organization. Tasmania is one of the world’s last true wilderness areas with pristine, unpolluted surfing beaches. Faced with a Gunns Ltd proposal for the development of the worlds biggest ECF Pulp Mill that plans to discharge its effluent through an ocean outfall at Bass Strait, right at his beloved point break “Cow Head”, Peter contacted Surfrider’s international office seeking information from the historic Humboldt case that was the second largest Clean Water Act victory in the history of the United States. Former Surfrider employee Mark Massara, who lead that effort, and now heads the Sierra Club’s Coastal Program put Peter in touch with two other pulp mill experts who have helped him with Surfrider Australia’s campaign.

Around the same time, Josh Berry, of the Chilean activist group Proplaya, was awarded a grant through Save the Waves to continue in his fight against the newly constructed Celulosa pulp mill in Nueva Aldea, in the Eighth Region of Chile. His goal is to have the pulp mill abide by all Chilean environmental laws, create an independent monitoring team with timely enforcement by authorities and ensure that the mill uses the latest in “clean” technologies, that is, an internal closed-circuit system that would help save the watershed environment.

When a pulp mill comes to town, the entire watershed is forever damaged, as locals in Eureka, California know. Sources of fresh water are polluted, acid rain is a consistent threat, river and marine fisheries die and human health issues rise. So when a pulp mills’ pollution discharge permit expires, as it did for the Georgia Pacific mill, local Newport activists jump at the opportunity to push for more stringent standards.

With these three pulp mill fights taking place around the Pacific Rim, it didn’t take too much brainstorming to tie these activist synergies together. A common desire was to have the ability to tap into a knowledge base, dialogue on current situations and figure out a way to share other resources such as technology and media contacts.

In Tasmania, Gunns Ltd. released its 7000 page environmental impact report in the middle of July, with a 60-day turnaround time. In this report Gunns Ltd attempts to outline why their new ECF Pulp Mill will be the “world’s best practice” and will have minimal impacts on the marine environment around the effluent discharge area. This marine environment has abundant sea life including fur seals, fairy penguins, “sea dragons” and other endangered species, and is close to one of the world’s richest marine “sponge” gardens. Peter needed assistance reading through the 1000’s of pages of scientific material and approached a local university to procure marine biology students to help wade through the reams of material in time to put together comments for a public submissions process scheduled for mid September. One planned submission will be for an independent coalition of stakeholders, including Surfers, to monitor the new Mill’s marine environmental impacts. With the pulp mill network, Peter and his fellow activists now have access to a group of scientists from around the world who have volunteered to help where possible.

Save The Waves in Chile needs more scientific knowledge as well as media coverage and funding to help apply pressure to Grupo Angelini, owner of the Celulosa pulp mill. Josh has already staged several mass protests in which thousands have participated; however Grupo Angelini has deep ties to the government’s environmental committees. His next tactic is a concert in the Chilean capital of Santiago in late August.

Save the Waves is now initiating its own water-testing program through the Universidad Austral in Valdivia and is also initiating an exhaustive legal review of the environmental impact report that was approved on questionable grounds before the Nueva Aldea mill was built.

In Oregon, activists are reviewing the Georgia Pacific pulp mill’s new National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit to determine how it differs from the existing permit and are supplying the permit’s reviewing agency – the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality – with pollution-reducing comments. The Newport Chapter’s effort is being led by Melinda McComb. She has been reviewing literature and documents for several months to educate chapter volunteers, local policy makers and to write letters to the local paper. She has assistance reviewing the NPDES permit from three dedicated attorneys volunteering their time and Surfrider field and national staff. The purpose of Surfrider Foundation taking this action is not to shut the Georgia Pacific mill down. Rather, it is to hold the state of Oregon accountable for appropriate implementation of federal and state laws that protect water quality and ensure human health for Oregon citizens.

The Surfrider Foundation continues to advocate and fight for responsible and effective coastal environmental management standards while also building a strong public awareness of how our oceans and water supplies, and therefore all of us, are affected when projects and operations do not consider their impact on our environment. Our efforts and successes in regard to the reduction of pulp mill pollution continues to raise the bar for environmental coastal protection and standards.