Pactiv Evergreen, owner of the shuttered papermill in Canton, has been working to clean up two separate seeps leaking toxic substances into the Pigeon River under an administrative order of consent (AOC) with the Environmental Protection Agency. 

Amid ongoing restructuring, Pactiv Evergreen presented its first quarter earnings report on May 2, missing earnings targets and revealing flagging revenue at least partially attributable to the closing of its Canton paper mill last year. 

Ever since Pactiv Evergreen announced back on March 6, 2023, that it would shutter its paper mill in Canton, town officials have been bracing for the budgetary impact that the closure would cause.

Once Pactiv Evergreen’s Canton paper mill shut down for good, people wondered how the Pigeon River and the aquatic life it supports would change. 

A pair of new environmental violations issued this month brings the total for Canton’s shuttered paper mill up to seven since it closed last June and 22 since May 2021 — an average of 1.3 violations every two months. 

The Town of Canton has been through some difficult budget discussions in the past, but this year’s effort, the first to reckon with the full impact of Pactiv Evergreen’s exit from the community after more than a century, looks to be the most trying. 

While mountain residents were busy preparing for Christmas, the Pactiv Evergreen paper mill in Canton that until May 2023 employed more than 1,000 of them was racking up a pair of new environmental violations.

Two congressmen, both hoping to become North Carolina’s next attorney general, with be faced with a host of official duties if elected. Paramount among them — at least for many Haywood County residents — is holding Pactiv Evergreen accountable for issues related to the closing of the company’s paper mill in Canton. 

The Grinch who Stole Christmas and Pactiv Evergreen have a lot more in common than just a shared color scheme and stealing presents right out from under the Christmas trees of children.

This one goes to the Pigeon River, due both to the actual metals found in a sampling site along its bank and to the very metal way its fish populations have rebounded after the Canton paper mill shut down in June.