Source: Julia Ritchey, CAROLINA PUBLIC PRESS, 3/15/21


There are few places a visitor can smell before seeing. The town of Canton, nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Western North Carolina, is one such place. Although Blue Ridge Paper, the giant factory that sits squarely at the center of this historic Haywood County mill town on the Pigeon River, has spent more than $500 million on cleanup and mitigation since the 1980s, when locals remember the Pigeon River running black, environmental groups say there’s still much work to be done.

For more of this story, click here.