Read sad news this morning that Evergreen Packaging will close its Canton, NC mill this summer. The mill is served by Watco's Blue Ridge Southern (BLU) on their line between Sylva and Asheville, where they interchange with NS. The closure will put 900 millworkers on the street and devastate the local economy in Canton. With family once living in the area, I know the region pretty well. I don't know what other tonnage moves on this line, but I suspect it isn't much. With the end of coal traffic in the last decade, Asheville has become a forgotten vestige of what it once was. Via BLU, NS will lose the mill tonnage, giving them even less reason to serve Asheville. Changes will be afoot no doubt and if BLU's line is shut, that'll cost the Great Smoky Mountain RR its connection to the outside world at Sylva. BLU will continue to serve a large Kimberly Clark plant at Hendersonville on a different line, so that's a good thing. [Canton NC - 06/13/2015] This is a full scale millsite, with a woodyard, pulp mill, digester, chemical recovery, power plant, paper machine(s) and shipping. They've been making paper here for nearly 120 years.
Can't lick "Like" for such news. I am wondering why it is closing. Has our demand for such paper products really dropped that much?
Evergreen Packaging reported that was indeed the cause, but they make juice and milk container stock there, which you'd think would remain strong regardless of economic trends. I sometimes think the financial analysis on these things is lacking. My hope is that they can sell it. The pulp and paper industry went through a serious bloodletting in the last few decades and I thought it was over, but apparently not. Verso closed the giant (former Westvaco) mill at Luke, MD in 2019 along with their large (former Consolidated Papers) Wisconsin Rapids Mill. Recently closed smaller mills in Duluth, MN and Roaring Springs, PA may be brought back to life with new investors.
