Blue Ridge Paper Products, Memphis, Tenn., USA, a subsidiary of Evergreen Packaging, Canton, N.C., has been awarded a Job Maintenance and Capital Development Fund (JMAC) Grant from the state of North Carolina to be used to convert two of its coal-fired boilers to natural gas at its Haywood County, N.C., mill. The company will receive up to $12 million over 10 years to make the conversion. Evergreen Packaging will invest $51 million.

 

Funding for the JMAC grant was included in a bill with bi-partisan support signed by Governor Pat McCrory at the Western Residence this past September. As a result, not only will 939 jobs be retained, but the plant will also be more energy efficient and operate cleaner. The remaining funds will be used to retrofit three additional boilers. 

 

"When I signed this bill in September at the Western Residence, I noted that it was intended to ensure job retention and help manufacturing companies move toward cleaner energy operations," said Gov. McCrory. "This JMAC grant is doing exactly that at Canton Mills. When the work is completed, Blue Ridge Paper Products will be operating more efficiently, and will have kept a significant number of high-paying, high-quality jobs."

 

Blue Ridge Paper Products is the largest private employer in Haywood County. The U.S. EPA informed the company it has until 2019 to comply with federal boiler maximum achievable control technology (MACT) or be required to shut down.

 

The JMAC Fund is a discretionary incentive program that provides sustained annual grants to businesses that meet the requirements of a major employer or a large manufacturing employer. It is intended to encourage retention of significant numbers of high-paying, high quality jobs and large-scale capital investment that will modernize processes and provide more globally competitive projects. 

 

Blue Ridge Paper Products qualifies as a large manufacturing employer. Under the statute, a business must invest at least $50 million in capital improvements designed to convert its manufacturing process to change the product it manufactures or designed to enhance pollution controls or transition the manufacturing process from using coal to using natural gas for the purpose of becoming more energy efficient and reducing emissions. In addition, the business must either be in a Tier 1 county with at least 320 full-time employees, or be in a Tier 2 county with a population of less than 60,000 as of July 1, 2013, and employ at least 800 full-time employees.

 

Blue Ridge Paper Products produces specialty paperboard packaging products and a range of specialty and commodity grades of paperboard and paper products. The company operates in two segments, Paper and Packaging. The Paper segment produces uncoated freesheet paper, including envelope paper, specialty paper, offset printing paper, and uncoated paperboard. The Packaging segment offers gable top cartons used for packaging juice, milk, and other related products, and ovenable paperboard used for heating packaged foods in microwave and conventional ovens, cup stock paperboard, and liquid packaging paperboard. The company serves juice and dairy producers, consumer products companies, ovenable paperboard and cup manufacturers, envelope manufacturers, printers, and distributors in North America, Central America, Europe, and Asia.

 

The company was formerly known as Carolina Paper Co. and changed its name to Blue Ridge Paper Products in March 1999.