DIOXIN DOWN IN JACKSON, JAMES RIVERS

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, January 9, 1992                   TAG: 9201090467
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B6   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: RICHMOND                                LENGTH: Short
DIOXIN DOWN IN JACKSON, JAMES RIVERS
The state says dioxin levels have declined in fish in the upper James and Jackson rivers, and a health advisory warning people not to eat sport fish caught there has been lifted.
The fish include rock and smallmouth bass, sunfish and bluegill.
However, the state Department of Health is keeping the health advisory for bottom-feeding fish such as carp and catfish, although health officials say dioxin levels in those species also are lower than they were two years ago.
Dioxin is a highly toxic byproduct of chlorine-based industrial processes, including the bleaching of paper pulp. Westvaco Corp. operates a paper mill at Covington that discharges waste water into the Jackson River, which meets the Cowpasture River to form the James.
Westvaco's Covington plant is one of the three paper mills in Virginia that have been confirmed as sources of dioxin. The others are operated by Union Camp Corp. in Franklin and Chesapeake Corp. in West Point.
The department issued the health advisory on parts of the Jackson and James rivers in December 1989.
The next year, it issued a similar advisory on portions of rivers and creeks affected by Union Camp's mill discharges. The state is maintaining its health advisory on sportfish and bottom-feeding fish in five miles of the Blackwater River and three miles of the Nottoway River.
North Carolina also has a health advisory on fish taken from waters downstream from the Franklin mill.

by Archana Subramaniam by CNB