Local water supplies drying up: Paper mill may have to suspend production
The severe drought plaguing Western North Carolina has taken its toll on the local water supply, and residents are being asked to conserve what they can.
Local steelworkers have to redo election
Following an investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor, the United Steelworkers Local 9-507 in Canton has to redo its election of officers before March 31, 2016.
Evergreen undergoes costly clean up of coal stacks under new air pollution rules
The smokestacks at Evergreen Packaging paper mill in Canton will be significantly cleaner within four years thanks to $50 million in pollution upgrades.
Haywood’s paper mill emerges as the blue-collar mainstay
There’s good news in the marketplace for Evergreen Packaging paper mill in Canton.
Evergreen clinic prepares to close
Evergreen Family Medical Center in Canton is no longer making new appointments for patients as it prepares to shutter its doors March 31.
Community rallies to keep Evergreen clinic
Evergreen Packaging in Canton plans to close the Evergreen Family Medical Center and pharmacy on March 31, but county officials are working behind the scenes to entice one of the area hospitals to keep it open.
Evergreen employees and their families are now rallying around Dr. Tony Jones and his staff at the clinic and pharmacy with the hope that Haywood Regional Medical Center, recently purchased by Duke LifePoint, or Mission Health in Asheville will swoop in to save the day.
Evergreen works in nationwide effort to promote carton recycling
If you ask the average person what kinds of packaging can go in the recycling bin, you’ll probably get a list full of plastic bottles, steel cans and aluminum, but paper cartons don’t usually make that off-the-cuff list.
A group of industry representatives calling itself the Carton Council of North America is hoping to change that.
“We really do have a vision that those packages are recyclable, and we want to be sure that there is that capability in communities across the country,” said Derric Brown, sustainability director at Evergreen Packaging in Canton.
Mill town riddle: Bearing the burden and reaping the rewards
Canton exists against the backdrop of the paper mill. Both literally and figuratively.
For generations, the paper mill — currently run by Evergreen Packaging — has helped to define the community of Canton. Its billowing factory by the railroad tracks are as much a part of Canton’s horizon and landscape as the setting sun.
Evergreen negotiations ‘worked out fine’
Evergreen Packaging has been in talks with its employees since the spring, trying to hammer out a new contract. This month, the company reached a deal with members of the union.
Old paper mill landfills mostly go unnoticed, un-monitored
More than 200 acres of scattered tracts along the meandering Pigeon River Valley in Haywood County are quiet sentries to the not-so-pretty past of Canton’s century-old paper mill.
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Mountains of toxin-laced sludge and coal ash are buried in vast industrial dumps on the outskirts of town, hidden relics of the mill’s long papermaking presence here. The old unlined landfills leapfrog along a 2-mile section of the Pigeon River downstream of the mill.
