Buckeye Technologies is a
Memphis,
Tennessee-based industrial company which began in
Ohio by the Procter & Gamble Company,
and was formerly known as
Buckeye Cellulose. The
Company was sold by P&G due to increasing negative
environmental publicity surrounding it's Foley Florida mill. It
(Buckeye Technologies) is one of the larger industrial employers
remaining in the Memphis area.
In Perry (Foley) Florida, it's
dissolving kraft mill has severely impacted the local ecology.
Groundwater has been contaminated, native hardwood and pine forests
have been decimated and replaced with corn row slash pine. Wetlands
have been drained, native cypress stands logged and ground into
landscape mulch. The Fenholloway River, a once pristine body of
water, has been completely ruined by the Buckeye Mill's effluent
discharge. The Company's well fields extract an estimated 50
million gallons of fresh groundwater every 24 hours, drying up a
spring that once supplied a local water bottling facility. This 50
million gallons per day is then contaminated by the pulp mill
processes, then discharged into the Fenholloway. Hundreds of acres
of once flourishing seagrass beds near the mouth of the Fenholloway
have been destroyed by the dark tannin stained effluent. Recent
process changes in the mill are reportedly helping this impacted
resource somewhat. Time will tell. The mill also spews an awful
sulfur smell into the air 365 days a year. All this environmental
carnage for a few hundred jobs.
Cool eh?
I think it should
be noted that the above company description appears to be written
by, and the personal opinions of, someone who may be very concerned
with perceived environmental issues and perhaps not so concerned
with fact.