Pulp Mill Sourced Organic Compounds and Sodium Levels in Water and Sediments from the Tarawera River, New Zealand.

The article investigates the levels of pulp mill-sourced organic compounds and sodium in water and sediment samples taken from the Tarawera River in New Zealand. Two pulp mills have for more than thirty five years, discharged effluent waters to the Tarawera River located in the township of Kawerau. The researchers have reported the presence in water samples taken from the lower reaches of the river, of a variety of pulp mill-sourced compounds including, fatty acids, resin acids, and some chlorophenolic compounds. A unique aspect of the effluents was the presence of appreciable quantities of abietan-18-oic acid, a saturated resin acid and four degraded resin hydrocarbons, namely fichtelite, dehydroabietin, tetrahydroretene and retene.