The state wants Blue Ridge Paper to make the Pigeon River cleaner, and is asking for color reductions of up to 29 percent in its new permit.

Environmentalists says the mill can do better.

That may sound like the same old story, but there is a new twist — Blue Ridge Paper and environmentalists are sitting down and talking instead of screaming at each other. That, many say, is a huge improvement.

For nearly a century, the murky brown Pigeon River has been a source of controversy, especially for downstream communities in Tennessee. That controversy has quieted some over the last 10 years — thanks to a paper plant modernization and a new openness — but it still persists. As the Canton paper plant readies for a Sept. 6 (Tuscola High School, 7 p.m.) public hearing on its latest application to dump warm, brown effluent into the river, mill officials hope the tone of the debate has changed for the better.

“Our relationship with the communities and groups affected by our operation is radically different than it was under the previous ownership,” said Bob Williams, Williams held a similar position with Champion, the former owners of the huge pulp and paper mill in Canton.

In the old days, Williams remembers how busloads of protesters would come over from Tennessee during public hearings. Some would dress as grim reapers to protest the condition of the Pigeon River. Now, Blue Ridge will send buses to Tennessee for the Sept. 6 hearing to bring over anyone who wishes to speak for or against the permit. It has formed community councils in North Carolina and Tennessee with whom it meets with and keeps informed about the mill’s economic and environmental health.

“I think you will find many others in Newport who appreciate what the mill leadership is doing,” said David Popeil, the publisher of the Newport Plain Talk, the newspaper of record in the community that has complained the loudest about the condition of the Pigeon River. Popeil started as a reporter for the newspaper and has covered the controversy for more than 20 years. He is also on Blue Ridge Paper’s community advisory council.

“I believe mill employees are making a most sincere effort, and that is in great contrast to Champion,” Popeil said.

Gay Webb, 67, feels differently. He is one of the founding members of the Dead Pigeon River Council and has been fighting for decades to clean the Pigeon River. He is also on that council and was raised along the river in Tennessee. He has never seen it run cold and clear like other mountain rivers.

“For 20 years I’ve been lied to by the best of them, but I’m really disappointed in this group,” Webb said of current mill owners and the color reductions proposed in the draft permit now under review. “The economic benefits of a clean river are much greater than the economic benefits of the mill.”

Hope Taylor-Guevara, the executive director of The Clean Water Fund of North Carolina, says the Asheville-based organization wants the employee-owned mill to succeed. She also says the new owners, who bought the paper plant in May 1999, have worked hard to create a “different level of communication.”

Still, she is disappointed with the color reductions proposed by the state in Blue Ridge’s new permit.
“We feel the state is asking for a lot less color reduction than can be done affordably by the mill,” Taylor-Guevara said.

A divisive waterway
The Pigeon River has divided mountain communities in Tennessee and North Carolina since Champion opened its pulp and paper mill in 1908. The river begins high in the Smokies from some of the clearest springs and streams in Western North Carolina. By the time it gets to Canton, the paper mill often uses 90 percent of the stream flow. The mill’s effluent is brown and 97 degrees, and from that point onward the river is drastically altered.

Though communities in both states suffer from the river’s pollution, Haywood County and North Carolina get the jobs and economic benefits. The paper mill became the best-paying employer in the region, leading most local and state leaders to defend the mill when environmentalists cried foul. About 1,300 people work at Blue Ridge paper facilities in Canton and Waynesville.

The tenor of the controversy began to change in 1990. Champion announced plans to begin a $330 million modernization project that eventually eliminated the use of elemental chlorine (thought to be responsible for the dioxin in the Pigeon River) and installed “oxygen delignification” and “bleach filtrate recycling” processes that improved the color of the river. Water use was decreased from 45 million gallons a day to 25 million gallons a day.

The new permit that goes into effect this December would further improve the river. A 1997 settlement between the EPA, Tennessee and North Carolina allowed Champion to release 98,000 pounds of color per day into the river; by December 1998, that amount was reduced to 60,000 pounds per day; by February 1998, the company’s target discharge was set at 52,000 pound per day. By May 2001, it was down to 48,000 pound per day.

The new permit would require Blue Ridge to reduce its color load to 42,000 pounds per day by 2003 and 39,000 pounds per day by 2006. Williams calls the reductions “significant but achievable,” and even environmentalists admit Blue Ridge operates one of the most technologically advanced paper mills in the world.

Still, Taylor-Guevara says the permit proposal does not go far enough. She says the mill could reduce its color effluent to 33,000 pounds per day.

Despite all its improvements, Blue Ridge does not meet state requirements for the color and temperature of its effluent. The state Division of Water Quality is recommending that Blue Ridge be allowed to renew its “variance,” which is an exception to state water quality rules.

“It is not unusual for us to issue temperature variances,” said Susan Massengale, a DWQ spokesperson. “A color variance is unusual.”

Massengale did not know if Blue Ridge was the only manufacturer with a color variance, but she could not identify any others in the state.

The state standard for color, however, is not based on definitive criteria. State regulations require that discharges have “no objectionable impact,” which its own regulators have not defined. The EPA, however, interpreted it at 50 color units. Water in the Pigeon River enters Canton with a color value of 13. It exits the mill with a value of somewhere between 150 and 200, depending on river flow and mill activity. Under the new permit, Blue Ridge hopes to be able to meet a standard of around 50 by 2006. Williams said the eventual goal is to not have to ask for the variance.

Others think it should happen sooner.

“It enters at 13, it should be 13 when it leaves,” said Webb. “Changing color from 13 to 200 should not be allowed in this day and age.”

A new attitude
In October of last year, environmentalists were crawling all over Blue Ridge Paper’s Canton plant.

In an unprecedented collaboration, a technical study of Blue Ridge’s papermaking operation was undertaken by Dr. Norm Liebergott, an internationally known expert on pulp and paper mills. The agreement to open up the plant for inspection came at the behest of environmental groups, Williams said.

Those groups included the Clean Water Fund of North Carolina, the American Canoe Association, Appalachian Voices, the Dead Pigeon River Council, the Western North Carolina Alliance, and the Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project, among others.

Liebergott’s report and its recommendations are being used by Blue Ridge, said Williams. That report was also used by an EPA task force that studied mill operation this summer and helped the state come up with the parameters suggested in the draft permit.

Taylor-Guevara, however, said that, in the end, the collaboration fell short of what it could have achieved.

“The state is asking for 9,000 pounds of reduction in color. We think 15,000 pounds is possible,” said Taylor-Guevara, referencing recommendations in the Liebergott and EPA reports.

She blames the state for going easy on Blue Ridge.

“We’re scratching our heads. There is a long history of the DWQ going easy on this permit. They are giving too much wiggle room and no acknowledgement of the Clean Water Act,” she said.

“We glowed about the collaborative report, but we had hoped to build more of those recommendations into the permit. DWQ has undercut everything,” said Taylor-Guevara.

While Blue Ridge admits technology exists to make the Pigeon perfectly clear, it simply could not operate profitably doing that, says Williams. Popeil, remembering back to the 1980s when Champion was releasing 500,000 pounds of color a day into the river, says the paper maker is making measured, quantifiable improvements.

“It’s unrealistic to want the river as clean as it was in 1900. We all enjoy our lifestyles, and we all contribute to pollution,” Popeil said.

 

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