Please Help Protect the Pigeon

[Eli]

Many of us remember how nasty the Pigeon River's water used to be and the court battles required to clean it up. It is much better than it used to be, but it is certainly not pristine. The State of North Carolina is about to waive the need to continue cleaning up the Pigeon for the remainder of our lifetimes. North Carolina's Department of Water Quality is preparing to drop the color variance test which is our main measure of the toxins in the Pigeon. Although the color isn't as important to me as the toxins in the water, without this measure, the state offers no true measure of the pollutants.

Although the Pigeon has improved over the years, it still has a long way to go. In 2007, "Blue Ridge Paper Products released 123,856 pounds of toxic chemical waste into the Pigeon River and was the 10th largest reported polluter of toxic chemicals in North Carolina in 2007." "The Pigeon River is ranked 7th in North Carolina for the most cancer-causing chemicals, with 10,740 pounds of chemicals linked to cancer discharged by the Blue Ridge Paper Products plant in 2007."

January 25th (this coming Monday) at 5 pm at the Cocke County High School in Newport, TN, there will be a public meeting where we will be allowed to voice our concerns. On the 26th (this coming Tuesday) at the Tuscola High School in Waynesville, NC at 6 pm, our final opportunity to state our concerns will take place. Please bring your friends and attend at least one of these two hearings. The Dirty Bird needs your help!!



If you can't attend the meetings, written comments should be postmarked before January 26th:

Ms. Dina Sprinkle
NC Division of Water Quality/NPDES Unit
1617 Mail Service Center
Raleigh, NC 27699-1617

Or

dina.sprinkle@ncdenr.gov and sergei.chernikov@ncdenr.gov

Be sure to reference "PERMIT NUMBER NC0000272 for Blue Ridge Paper Products"

[Craig Smerda]

Save the "Dirty Bird"

Irony?

Good job Eli...

[reecepaddles]

Eli, I know we need to request that they not drop the color variance test for the Pigeon, but how should we approach the permitt thing that you listed? Are we opposed to this permitt? Not sure what the permitt is for or against!
thanks!

[agrestal]

Request sent - I just learned that all 6.6 billion of us have to survive on a mere 3% of the earth's water. 97% is undrinkable due to salt or pollution. Luckily we aren't relying on the Pigeon for drinking water, but how sad that we abuse our natural resources so!

[Eli]

Thanks for the query, sorry I wasn't clear to start.

For those of us that desire clean water, this permit is unacceptable as it will halt any further cleanup of the Pigeon River. Cost-effective process changes are available to the mill to reduce pollution to the river, but the NC Department of Water Quality is not requiring implementation of these methods. Unless we are vocal about our objection to this permit, we will be stuck with the Pigeon at it's current level of "cleanliness".

Clean Water Expected in East TN (cweet.org) and Clean Water For NC (cwfnc.org) suggest that we focus on the following points:

*Don't allow DWQ to be "done" with the Pigeon.
*Clarify that color is not just aesthetic - it is toxic and affects
aquatic life and other uses of the river
*EPA called for 50 color units below the mill's discharge pipe in 1987; the mill STILL is not meeting this!
*Stress that this is an iconic issue with national importance; rare case of EPA taking back a permit (1985), and building EPA's credibility in enforcing the Clean Water Act.

On the TN side, we can influence the permit decision by contacting Gov. Bredesen's office and TDEC (Paul Davis). Ultimately, if TN gets involved, the EPA will hopefully step back in and at least enforce the standards set 15 years ago.

Thanks for your help!

[Crunchy]

The Pigeon River flows into Douglas Lake which provides drinking water for Knoxville. (the French Broad also flows into the lake)

[Crunchy]

This is what happens when you drink Pigeon River water:

7-foot Penguin Found in East Tennessee
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20100 ... +Tennessee

[Eli]

It's time to attend the hearings Mon and Tues night and/or send in our comments!!!

This is a press blurb being released from Clean Water Expected in East Tennessee today:

Groups Call for Much Stronger Permit for Blue Ridge Paper to Clean Up River

“No more excuses” say advocates. NC must require affordable process changes now to reduce Pigeon pollution

The Pigeon River should be as clean and healthy downstream of the Canton Mill, long-time River advocate happy Webb has said, as it is above the Mill. “An honest person would put the water back in the River as clean as they took it. That is the right way of doing things. That is God’s way of doing things.”

Tonight, starting at 6:00 PM, Webb and other members of Cocke County Tennessee’s Waterways Advisory Council will be leading off comments at the official TN Public Meeting on Blue Ridge Paper’s renewal permit in Newport. The meeting is expected to attract hundreds of people, including Congressman Phil Roe, State Senator Steve Southerland and State Representative Eddie Yokely. Most are angry that North Carolina regulators are saying that the River’s water quality now meets a vague “narrative” color standard and that, instead of resuming the River clean-up that they have stalled for the last decade, NC officials plan to stop it by simply “deleting” the long-controversial color variance.

Formal resolutions passed by Cocke County Commissioners, the City of Newport and the County’s Waterways Advisory call for the permit to require affordable process changes to be installed in the Mill to reduce pollution to the River, and for the Environmental Protection Agency to reassume jurisdiction over the permit. Nearly 23 years ago, EPA took the permit away from the NC agency that refused to require a cleanup of the River and called for a 50 color unit standard just downstream of the Mill’s discharge pipe.

“Unfortunately, EPA gave jurisdiction of the permit back to North Carolina. If the EPA was still issuing the permit we would have made a lot more progress in cleaning up the River by now,” says Amelia Taylor of Clean Water Expected in East Tennessee, a group founded in 2006 by raft guides who knew that a clean river would only help their business to grow. “The Mill and North Carolina officials have stalled out the cleanup of the River at every opportunity. This terrible permit is the last straw—we’ve learned our lesson about what it takes to keep the cleanup on the River going. We know better than to expect a good faith effort from North Carolina and the Mill, so we’re demanding a stronger permit.”

“NC and the Mill may dismiss it as ‘only an aesthetic problem,’” says Chris Carswell a reverend and boating recreational leader in Cocke County, “but those of us who are getting splashed every day in the River know that the soup from pulping and bleaching coming out of their pipe brings foam and odors along with it. That’s stifling rafting, fishing and other recreation all along here.”

Tuesday evening, the public in North Carolina will have their say at a Public Hearing at Tuscola High School in Waynesville, starting at 7:00 PM, with 6:00 sign up for speakers. “There will be many of us from North Carolina standing with our downstream Pigeon River sisters and brothers, “ [[says Julie Mayfield, Executive Director of the Western NC Alliance??]]. “We know that Blue Ridge Paper Products can do much better and even reduce their chemical costs. It’s long past time for North Carolina to write a permit that will require this huge discharge on a tiny river to clean up further.” There will be the usual state and local officials saying that calling for a clean River will close down the Mill, a threat used for as long as the Mill has been in operation, but that argument just doesn’t “wash” with as many folks now.

Nearly a decade ago, shortly after the former Champion Mill was partly sold to employees and renamed Blue Ridge Paper Products, several environmental and downstream advocates, including Hope Taylor of Clean Water for NC, met with representatives of the Mill’s local union. They wanted to find common ground with workers at the Mill, and together they helped to negotiate a 2001 study of affordable, oxygen-based process changes to clean up the River. That study pointed to several pulping and bleaching methods that appeared likely to succeed, and EPA technical officials agreed, calling for two of the most cost-effective process changes be part of the 2001 permit. But the NC Division of Water Quality, which has negotiated fiercely for decades to ensure weak permits for the Canton Mill, didn’t require them. Today, the Mill’s effluent is only about 6% cleaner than when that weak permit was granted. While union leadership had seemed convinced that the oxygen based process changes were an important opportunity, without the requirement in the permit, predictably, the Mill didn’t install them.

“We keep hearing Mill officials and NC regulators say there’s no technology to clean up the River. They have access to the same information about those technologies from the EPA Tech Team and independent Mill expert that we have, but they always find an excuse not to do them.” says Taylor. A NC water quality official involved in writing the permit even told a reporter in 2007 that the public would have to choose between jobs and a clean river—“That’s 19th century thinking. It flies in the face of the Clean Water Act and human ingenuity. None of the affordable changes that EPA or clean river advocates called for is a threat to jobs, and they know it.”