A jury in Newport, Tenn., awarded landowners along the Pigeon River in Cocke County $2 million in a class-action lawsuit against Blue Ridge Paper Products for river pollution.

It’s another financial blow for the Canton paper mill, which was hit by the back-to-back floods last fall, has forked over millions for air emissions upgrades, is hurting from skyrocketing health care costs for employees and is limping through a depressed paper market, posting millions in losses annually. Blue Ridge Paper downsized its workforce locally by 100 people last year.

“We are not trying to put anybody out of a job. We don’t have any desire to do that. But we do want a clean river downstream,” said Gordon Ball, the Knoxville attorney who argued the suit.

Ball said class-action lawsuits are increasingly being used as a tool by private citizens in fighting polluters, citizens who otherwise couldn’t afford to wage a legal battle.

“The class-action device procedurally didn’t start until the 1960s. So it was probably the ‘80s or ‘90s before people realized how they could use it,” Ball said.

Each of the 303 landowners will get roughly $4,300, a subjective amount arrived at by the jurors.

“The elements are annoyance, inconvenience, discomfort, not being able to use the river yourself because it is polluted, and you can’t put a hard value on that,” Ball said.

The Pigeon River does support a paddling industry in Tennessee, which Blue Ridge Paper cited to make a case that the river isn’t terribly polluted. But Ball put a rafter on the stand as his final witness.

“He testified that the nickname the rafters had given the river was the ‘Dirty Bird.’ He testified the river was still tea-colored, had foam on it and smelled. If it was clean, their business would be double,” Ball said.

Blue Ridge Paper Products does not meet the Environmental Protection Agency water quality standards with its discharges, but is granted a variance by the state.

“They are not culpable in a legal sense, but I think the state of North Carolina is culpable in a moral sense,” Ball said. “The day they quit asking for the variance is the day I quit fighting.”

The mill’s variance expires next year, but it can ask for a renewal. This case was the third case Ball has orchestrated against Blue Ridge Paper since the 1990s. He is already planning another.