Troubled waters
Subtitle: Champion International and the Pigeon River Controversy
By: Richard A. Bartlett.
Edition: 1st ed.
Series: Outdoor Tennessee series
Publisher: University of Tennessee Press
Published: 1995
Place of publication: Knoxville
Language: eng
Number of pages: 348
Subjects: Champion International Corporation.; Paper industry -- Waste disposal -- Environmental aspects -- Pigeon River (N.C. and Tenn.); Water -- Pollution -- Pigeon River (N.C. and Tenn.)
Description: Since 1908, the corporate giant now known as Champion International has operated a pulp and paper mill along the banks of the Pigeon River in Canton, North Carolina. As a result, during most of those years, this once-sparkling Appalachian stream has been virtually useless except as an industrial sewer - foamy, foul-smelling, molasses-colored. By polluting the river, the mill that brought prosperity to Canton stunted the economic growth of the downstream communities in Cocke County, Tennessee.

Although public pressure to clean up the Pigeon surfaced intermittently, it has been only in the years since 1985 that two organizations - the Pigeon River Action Group and the Dead Pigeon River Council - have mounted a sustained drive against the ongoing pollution. Today, following a multimillion-dollar upgrading of the Champion mill, the Pigeon River is cleaner but hardly pristine. Moreover, there is little evidence that Champion carried out its modernization for any reasons other than economic ones.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [321]-328) and index.
Table of contents: title: Chronology, May 1985-April 1994; title: The mill, the setting, and the problem; title: Enter Champion; title: Pollution at will: the first seven decades of the Canton mill; title: Who is Charles Dickens Mullinix?; title: The legal battles begin; title: Cocke County takes a stand; title: A growing conflict, 1985-1987; title: The programmed Asheville hearing; title: Overkill: the Knoxville hearing; title: Dioxin; title: The governor rejects the variance; title: The permit, the evidentiary hearing, and the lawsuit; title: Where we were, where we are, and a look ahead.