April 30, 2021

Email your comments to: [email protected], with the subject heading “Blue Ridge Paper.”

A summary of the history of the variance, review of applicable regulations, and a reevaluation of the stream conditions may be viewed here.

And please review CWFNC’s Fact Sheet for more information and to help you draft your comments!

Clean Water for North Carolina has been a long-time ally of several TN and NC groups and downstream residents in the fight for a Clean Pigeon River.  In 2010, after many delays led NC Water Quality regulators to draft another weak permit for the Blue Ridge Paper Products (BRPP) Mill in Canton, we joined with TN and NC allies to call on EPA to weigh in on the permit. Then, when EPA’s response wasn’t strong enough, we joined with those allies to file a formal “contested case” against the permit, and demand further progress in cleaning up the River!

In the fall of 2020, the NC Div. of Water Resources said they announced a comment period regarding color in the Pigeon River, but they didn’t even notify the concerned parties to the 2010 permit challenge!  Now they are claiming that, because they received no negative feedback on the color in the River, they plan to drop the long standing “Color Variance”, which is the only continuing leverage to improve water quality, and approve a permit that’s just as weak as the Mill’s previous one! CWFNC’s Fact Sheet to help you draft your comments