A defunct Washington pulp mill is threatening nearby waterways with hundreds of thousands of gallons of toxins
Dirty deal: Storage tanks at the former Cosmo Specialty Fibers pulp mill on the banks of the Chehalis River house are in poor condition, posing a risk for chemical spills. Photo: DOE
By Kendra Chamberlain. July 29, 2025. A ticking ecological time bomb is sitting just off First Street in the sleepy town of Cosmopolis, Wash. (pop. 1,666) just southeast of Aberdeen.
The site is home to Cosmo Specialty Fibers, a nonoperational pulp mill located along the banks of the Chehalis River, where storage tanks and treatment systems hold 800,000 gallons of corrosive chemicals and waste that threaten to leak into the nearby environment.
The facility has been closed since 2022, but the containers on the site remain—and they’re deteriorating.
State and federal environmental officials worry it’s only a matter of time before those tanks fail, potentially releasing hundreds of thousands of gallons of chemicals into nearby waterways, including the Chehalis River and Grays Harbor, south of Olympic National Park.
Both the Environmental Protection Agency and Washington Department of Ecology have tried to alert the mill’s owner of the problem. But the chemicals are still on-site, and the tanks continue to deteriorate.
In April 2024, the EPA ordered the company to maintain its power and water services, as well as fire suppression systems and 24-hour security, in order to “detect and respond to spills or releases of contaminants at or from the site.” A few months later, the EPA announced it had deployed emergency response staff to help secure the chemicals.
The Washington Department of Ecology has had enough. The Department announced on July 22 that it had fined Cosmo Specialty Fibers $2.3 million in violations and issued an order requiring the mill to clean up contamination on the property.
“We gave the owner time and many opportunities to make corrections and achieve his vision for the facility,” Bobbak Talebi, Washington Department of Ecology’s Southwest Region director, said in a press release. “Whether the mill is operating or not, by law, they must protect the people and environment around this facility.
“We need the owner to take this situation seriously and immediately address the threats stemming from a lack of maintenance and oversight. These urgent safety issues cannot wait. It’s too dangerous and there’s too much at risk.”
The pulp mill was originally operated as a specialty cellulose mill for Weyerhaeuser. It was later acquired by The Gores Group and reopened as Cosmo Speciality Fibers, which produced high-quality dissolving wood pulp.
The facility closed in 2022 and was acquired by Pennsylvania-based Charlestown Investments, which had hoped to reopen the mill in a matter of months. But the facility has sat idle ever since.
Charlestown Investments has 30 days to appeal the fines to the state’s Pollution Control Hearings Board or cough up the fine. And it will finally have to clean up those hazardous chemicals.
