MY MEMORIES

Charles Glenn Petersen

1968 - Alabama Years

Bleach Plant (continued)

First I convinced the technicians that I knew what I was doing and that I didn’t know everything and that I was willing to learn from them. Second I had to slowly learn from the operators exactly how the bleach plant worked so that I could get them to see its operation from my ideal perspective. We basically all became friends working toward a common goal while still producing 500 tons of bleached fiber every single day 24/7. It was accelerating to see progress being made.

The first stage of the bleach plant was the injection of chlorine gas directly in the pulp, the name given the brown fiber and water slurry. The stage had always been a problem stage with periodic escapes of chlorine gas into the plant. We got the chlorine flow meter to work first and then the chlorine flow controller back in the Automatic position. The operators now started to believe in me. Over the next few months we eventually, one at a time, got all of the controllers back in the Automatic position.