CANTON, N.C. — A company that owns a paper mill with a long history of controversy related to pollution in the Pigeon River said they were planning to close the mill.
The mill is located in Canton, North Carolina. Pactiv Evergreen, the company that owns the mill, announced in its fourth-quarter 2022 report that it was planning to close the mill as the company takes "significant restructuring actions related to its beverage merchandising operations."
The report said the company would also close its converting facility in Olmsted Falls, Ohio. Operations are expected to formally end during the second quarter of 2023, and production from the Olmsted Falls site will be reallocated to other sites.
Starting April 1, 2023, the company also plans to reorganize its management structure and combine its Beverage Merchandising and Food Merchandising businesses.
Pactiv Evergreen is a manufacturer and distributor of food packaging products. The company was formed in 2007 when three companies in carton manufacturing, forming, filling and sealing combined into a single entity.
Those companies were originally known as International Paper Beverage Packaging Division, Blue Ridge Paper Products and Cherry-Burrell, according to the company's website.
History of the Canton Paper Mill
In 2005, a jury awarded Tennessee landowners along the Pigeon River $2 million due to pollution from the upstream paper mill. It was the third class-action lawsuit against the Blue Ridge Paper Company and its predecessor, Champion International, over the Canton mill.
In 2008, then-Governor Phil Bredesen signed a law that required stricter water quality monitoring on the Pigron River due to concerns related to pollution from it. The law called on the Department of Environment and Conservation to test the water from the center of the river within a quarter-mile of the North Carolina border after years of concerns regarding pollution from the mill.
In 2010, environmental officials from North Carolina went to hear East Tennesseeans speak about a permit that allowed the paper mill to dump wastewater into the Pigeon River. In July 2010, their permit was changed to allow for a variance from the government's water quality standard for color.
In 2012, Blue Ridge Paper Products announced that it reached a partial agreement with environmental groups about the temperature of wastewater it dumps in the Pigeon River. Those groups claimed that pollution from the plant was changing the river's color. Those groups also said previous permits issued to the company gave them the chance to violate standards in the 1972 Clean Water Act.
By then, white-water rafting became a thriving industry in Cocke County. In 2021, the Cocke County mayor said that rafting along the Pigeon River drives millions of dollars in tourism and tax-dollar investments throughout the county, ahead of a public hearing on whether North Carolina officials would reduce restrictions on the mill's waste.