page_title: Hartford, Tennessee
section_title: The Pigeon River Pollution Controversy
hierarchical_section_title: Hartford, Tennessee / History / The Pigeon River Pollution Controversy
caption_attribution_description: The Pigeon River in Hartford, Tennessee.
context_page_description: Hartford is an unincorporated community in Cocke County, Tennessee, located in the southeastern United States. Although it is not a census-designated place, the ZIP Code Tabulation Area for the ZIP Code that serves Hartford had a population of 814, according to the 2000 census.
  Hartford is the easternmost town in Tennessee along Interstate 40, and thus acts as the state's "gateway" by helping to maintain the Tennessee Welcome Center. The town is located at the northeastern tip of the Great Smoky Mountains and lies within the Cherokee National Forest.
context_section_description: While the various lumber industries along the Pigeon River brought at least temporary prosperity to many of the valley's communities, the long-term effects of the mills' use of the river for waste dumping eventually began to take its toll.
  In 1908, Champion International (then known as the Champion Fibre Company)— which had bought up large tracts of forest in the Smokies— established a paper mill in Canton, North Carolina (upstream from Hartford).  Over the next few decades, Champion, like other industries along the Pigeon, used the river to dispose of its industrial waste.
  Throughout the 20th century, the Pigeon River Valley experienced a relatively high rate of cancer and other toxin-related deaths. Hartford itself was hit particularly hard, earning the nickname "Widowville." Environmentalists blamed the high cancer rate on the unusually high levels of dioxins and dioxin-like compounds in the tissue of fish living in the river.  After it was determined that Champion's Canton mill was the primary source of the excessive dioxin levels, the Environmental Protection Agency began to pressure the paper manufacturer to reduce its dioxin emissions. The debate reached a high point in 1988, when then-Senator Al Gore— who was seeking the Democratic presidential nomination— intervened on behalf of Champion. As Gore is normally pro-environment, many saw this move as hypocritical, and accused Gore of selling out the Pigeon Valley in order to gain much-needed primary votes in North Carolina.
  In spite of Gore's apparent snub, pressure from environmental groups continued, and Champion began taking measures to drastically reduce dioxin emissions in the early 1990s.  By 1994, Champion had spent $330 million modernizing its plant before new regulations forced the company to sell the plant in 1999.  Starting in 2002, the paper mill's new owner, the Blue Ridge Paper Company, spent $22 million to clean up the river.  The measures taken by Champion and Blue Ridge Paper led to a 99% reduction in the river's dioxin levels, and in early 2007, state advisory boards deemed fish caught in the Pigeon River safe for consumption.
caption: The Pigeon River in Hartford
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