The Pigeon River starts in North Carolina’s Pisgah National Forest in the form of several distinct and beautiful forks, all of which offer excellent paddling, and excellent water quality. The forks converge near Canton, North Carolina and there the good water quality ends. The paper mill in Canton has been polluting the river for nearly 100 years, alarming environmental groups and citizens for decades. As a result environmental regulations, and reports of unusually high cancer rates and toxic fish, water quality has been vastly improved below the Canton mill over the years. Now, with technological advances, vast improvements could be made to the mill that are cost-efficient, do not jeopardize employment at the plant, and significantly reduce pollution.
AW staff and volunteers have attended Rallies, filed comments, educated boaters, and spoken out publicly about this issue for years. Now we ask that boaters support this issue again by attending a rally this coming saturday, October, 26th. There will be music, letters to sign, sign-making materails, and educational materials. The river may or may not run at a boatable flow. The rally is in Hartford, TN (Exit 447 on I-40), at the take-out for the popular class 3+ Pigeon Gorge, and will take place from 11am until 2pm.
Please call 1-800-929-4480 for more information.
A big thank you goes out to Clean Water for North Carolina and the Tennessee Clean Water Network and the for organizing this event!
Some Additional Background!
The Pigeon River in east Tennessee has historicallybeen degraded by discharges from a paper mill inCanton, North Carolina. A settlement agreementconcluded in 1998 between Champion Paper Company, theState of North Carolina, the State of Tennessee, theUnited States Environmental Protection Agency, CockeCounty, Tenn.,City of Newport, Tenn. the AmericanCanoe Association and the Tennessee EnvironmentalCouncil resulted in strict new standards, and dramaticimprovements to the quality and color of the PigeonRiver. The Canton mill is now employee-owned andoperated by Blue Ridge Paper Products, Inc.In November 2001 the Canton mill received its newNational Pollution Discharge Ellimination System(NPDES) Permit which groups working on protecting thePigeon have found inadequate. A coalition of groupsare now requesting that EPA re-examine the NPDESpermit and strengthen the requirements of the mill,to make the pigeon suitable for aquatic life andrecreation. For more background visitwww.state.tn.us/environment/epo/pigeon/index