Comments mixed like oil and water at last Thursday’s (Sept. 6) public hearing regarding renewal of Blue Ridge Paper Product’s discharge permit.

The new permit, issued by N.C. Division of Water Quality (DWQ), will be in effect for five years. Blue Ridge Paper Products was created in 1999 when employees partnered with an investment company to purchase the Canton mill and six other DairyPak plants from Champion International. Environmental groups who earlier this year were part of an unprecedented collaboration with Blue Ridge to study the mill’s process and make recommendations for improving water quality directed their most critical comments at DWQ.

“I am not here to express anger with Blue Ridge Paper Products, but with the regulatory dysfunction which has perpetuated pollution and injustice and sold all of us short, including the employee-owners of Blue Ridge, by again forcing all of us into our old roles in this controversy when another way was possible,” said Hope Taylor-Guevara, the executive director of the Asheville-based Clean Water Fund of North Carolina.

No one denied the progress made by the mill over the last decade. Most attributed the cleaner water, however, to a 1997 agreement brokered by the EPA. Environmentalist who thought the 1996 permit of 98,000 pounds per day drafted by DWQ was totally inadequate appealed to EPA. The result was the current permit of 48,000 pounds per day.

“DWQ is being consistent — obstructing the very essence of what they stand for — water quality,” said John Noel of Nashville, who worked on the 1997 agreement on behalf of the Tennessee Environmental Council.

Blue Ridge inherited a long-standing color variance from Champion. DWQ issued a variance in 1988 after the EPA issued its first draft permit calling for Champion to comply with a 50-unit color standard. There has been a variance ever since, and many environmental groups want the variances to end.

“North Carolina has never voluntarily reduced the color discharge for this mill. The tiny amount of reduction in this permit isn’t even worth talking about. It’s long past time for the mill to meet North Carolina water quality standards,” said Bobby Seay of the Dead Pigeon River Council in a Sept. 5 press release.

DWQ regional supervisor Forest Westall has been associated with at least the last five permit renewals. In an interview before the hearing. Westall agreed that color in the Pigeon is an aesthetic issue.

“It’s been too high for too long,” he said.

But Westall disagrees with the environmentalists’ assessment of the permit.

“This is a work in progress. The company realizes the need to do more. Blue Ridge Paper exceeded the last permit and we feel they will do it again and remove the need for any variance,” Westall said.

While almost all the speakers at the hearing applauded the employee buyout of Champion and praised Blue Ridge, there was some finger pointing and posturing reminiscent of the more acrimonious, early battles between Champion and environmental groups.

Gay Webb of Wilton Springs, Tenn., who is one of the founding members of the Dead Pigeon River Council, told those present at the hearing, “Unless a stricter permit is adopted, a lawsuit against Blue Ridge Paper Products will go forward.”

Jim Stevens, chairman of the Haywood County board of commissioners, told the crowd he was speaking as a private citizen.

“I would like to see the river cleaned up and I hope we clean it up as fast as we can. But it didn’t get that way over night and it won’t get cleaned up over night,” he said.

When utilities like TVA and CP&L clean up the air, citizens will pay for it, Stevens said.

“Blue Ridge Paper can’t do that. We want to do what we can to clean the river, but we want to do it incrementally,” he said.

Pat Smathers, mayor of Canton, and Jay Hinson, director of Haywood County Economic Development Commission, noted the major impact Blue Ridge has on the economy of the region. Smathers said the mill accounted for over 58 percent of the town’s total tax base. Hinson said if the county lost the 1,375 jobs provided by Blue Ridge it would be “devastated.”

Numerous supporters of the draft permit noted the state’s Aug. 28 lifting of a fish consumption advisory for the Pigeon River as proof the river was clean. Environmentalist shrugged at the timing of the announcement, 10 days before the public hearing.

“The timing of the press release was fishy,” said Scott Jackson of the Clean Water Fund.

“Paddlers don’t eat the fish from the Pigeon River — we are the fish,” said Dave Jenkins of the American Canoe Association. He said he paddled the Pigeon Thursday afternoon and it left his eyes burning and skin itching.

According to Clean Water Fund, Blue Ridge needs to reduce color discharges by 27,000 pounds per day to do away with the variance. Taylor-Guevara said that is possible.

“The resulting report [a study contracted by Blue Ridge and the Clean Water Fund] identified several oxygen-based processes that would reduce color and chlorinated organic compounds which were affordable and could be implemented in a stepwise manner,” she said.

James Hutchinson, president of Smoky Mountain Local 507, said employees were not allowed to be a part of the process under Champion, but now have a vested interest.

“The union supports the dialogue with interested groups and continued investments in the environment. We challenge all groups to work together.”

 

Back to Top

The Smoky Mountain News