Covington mill's fate uncertain as MeadWestvaco announces restructuring

Buy American products you fools and see our economy rise! Put those pay checks to work! Kinda stupid us Americans do this us! Kinda like a small buisness you keep spending the money you make somewhere else your gonna shut down!

there shuttin detroit down and covington.

Sherylynn wrote:

Meadwestvaco is polluting the air and possibly responsible for various cancers. I personally recommend a replacement work status and training program for all employees from MWV when the transfer progress occurs. Covington is the idealistic location for productivity in high technology and transportation! For an example; there is an empty building near Alleghany water works that would be perfect for making automobile and aircraft parts and new construction for office buildings for technology performances. If we plan this very carefully, Covington will look nothing like Roanoke and could result in a very unique and prominent city including stable employment for many years to come ....

Your first sentence is very strange. I could just as easily say that Boy's Home could be possibly responsible for various cancer. Where's your proof? Why say this inflammatory stuff? I just checked and the cancer rate for Allegheny County is only very slightly higher than average. That is for all cancer w/o taking lifestyle, education, etc. into consideration.

This mill is disgusting. A filthy place with a lot of crappy people. No offense meant to those who are hard workers there. Several of The workers I know of in this mill are not. Drug users/dealers, lazy lowlifes. Not just for west vaco but for the people they sub work to also (zachary, waco, ect) can anyone say osha?(Not sure that's spelled rite. Workers having to wait for asbestos to be scraped from things before they can enter, without masks. People dying because of careless mistakes made by people hopped up on anything from lortab to crack. No sense of safety whatsoever This is ridiculous. Don't give me the "they drug test" bs because employees are notified of them 24 hours at least in advance. Plenty of time to get it out of your system. Has anyone seen the animals in this place? Obviously altered by chemicals. Largest funky looking deer you've ever seen. This place is not healthy for the environment or employees. Shut it down!!!

my husband worked in the carbon plant it is just nasty we would have to buy him new work boots all the time from the acid that ate holes in them ..or the black crap he cleaned out of his nose every night .. Or the cloths you could not wash with other cloths cause the load would turn all the other cloths black..people would ask him why he worked there ...he would say to feed his family ...he never smoked a day in his life ... And died at age 44 from lung cancer when are kids were 10 and 7 ...and did not get anything from mwv so..if you ask me.my husband was paid to die was it worth it NO close it down!!!!

Nature Lover wrote:

I just wonder if MWV was to shut down if the cancer rate in the area would drop and would the local river ever recover from the abuse this company has done to it over the past 60-70 years.
I am a nature lover and it really kills me to see what MWV and CSX has done to our environment over the years they have been in buisness here..Yes, its sad that all those people would lose their jobs and the local economy would suffer greatly(been suffering since the 80's when CSX moved out), but change is needed here in a bad kind of way.

Q

As a child I used to go visit my cousins who lived in Covington and I Could not understand why they lived in such a polluted smelly town. As a teen I even took pictures of the paper mill and wrote a paper on the pollution.( I got an A on that paper) My cousins lived there over a span of 45 years and 3 out of the 5 in that family have suffered with or died of various cancers. None of them worked at the plant but lived in nearby Clearwater Park.

Why would they be investing money ,alot of money ,to close it down later?Of course the so called smart people of our county are investing to much money in alleghany high school and then talking about consolidating..makes sense!Surely if they would consolidate a high school would not be in a fllod plane..who knows!

Ginny wrote:

<quoted text>Q
As a child I used to go visit my cousins who lived in Covington and I Could not understand why they lived in such a polluted smelly town. As a teen I even took pictures of the paper mill and wrote a paper on the pollution.( I got an A on that paper) My cousins lived there over a span of 45 years and 3 out of the 5 in that family have suffered with or died of various cancers. None of them worked at the plant but lived in nearby Clearwater Park.

Yes it is well known that covington has a high cancer rate and we only need to take a big whiff to understand why.Westvaco is also 90% of the reason why there are no jobs in this area and will never be.

Debbie Mann wrote:

I hope that Meadwestvaco will not close the Covington plant. We have been hit hard enough in this recession. This company has ben a great employer for years. The tobacco and wood industry supported this state for a long long time. Many of the workers, loggers and truckers don't have a high school education. They have no unemployment benefits as they are self employed. What will become of them and their families?
The revenue from the DMV the road taxes, and fuel will be a great loss as the income taxes also.
Let's keep this corporation up and running.

For your info Debbie not all workers, loggers and truckers are high school drop outs. We do unemployment benefits even if we are self employed. This has to be the dumbest thing I have ever heard. People like you have no respect for what we do or understand how much easier your life is because of us. The next time you have to use the restroom wipe your ass with plastic and see how that works for you. The next time you build something use something other then lumber an see what the outcome is. So lets hope the mill never closes because you might lose your job if we cant provide wood to make the products you need to continue working.

Nature Lover wrote:

I just wonder if MWV was to shut down if the cancer rate in the area would drop and would the local river ever recover from the abuse this company has done to it over the past 60-70 years.
I am a nature lover and it really kills me to see what MWV and CSX has done to our environment over the years they have been in buisness here..Yes, its sad that all those people would lose their jobs and the local economy would suffer greatly(been suffering since the 80's when CSX moved out), but change is needed here in a bad kind of way.

I hope Nature Lover is using leaves to "wipe themselves" instead of manmade toliet paper.

The Covington mill is building a new boiler costing millions of dollars. Why would they be doing that if they are going to close?

there shuttin detroit and covington down!!!! thanks mr.obama.

roadrunner wrote:

there shuttin detroit and covington down!!!! thanks mr.obama.

your a dumbass.

info wrote:

<quoted text>
your a dumbass.

sounds like you support obama,so guess who the dumbass is you dumbass.

smelly wrote:

<quoted text>Yes it is well known that covington has a high cancer rate and we only need to take a big whiff to understand why.Westvaco is also 90% of the reason why there are no jobs in this area and will never be.

Only lived here a few years and it is evident that the pollution from the mill has harsh effects from allergies, to cancer, and odd rare diseases on children and adults.

I never had allergies before and now have awful problems. Headaches, sinus, respiratory infections constantly and worse in the fall and winter or win a rain storm is coming.

The smell is bad. Everyone says it's much better here, have you checked the EPA reports. If it smells bad and gets worse the closer you get to the plant, something is not right. The numbers in some chemicals did go down after 2003, but now are higher. Just saying, it is not a healthy town.

I have seen so many kids that are sick constantly and adults and pollution will do it and cause cancer. So, is it the Mill, I guess yes in many aspects but have no hard proof.

Don't move here if you have respiratory problems or allergies to molds and other things. It is beautiful on the outside, but hurts on the inside and their are no jobs. Affordable housing, but no jobs and the Mill has a hold on the City to keep other factories and businesses out so they don't lose their hardworking employees trying to support their families at all risk.

Cheryl38 wrote:

The Covington mill is building a new boiler costing millions of dollars. Why would they be doing that if they are going to close?

A new boiler is not going to fix the pollution in the air. There is black ash or black liquor being emitted into the air, it's horrible. It covers my car and leaves indents in the paint. Family comes and says the same thing. There allergies go into full force from the pollution that is released in the air. The smell is horrible, thick, hazy and gives me horrible headaches, respiratory and other problems. I am not the only one. It needs to close down and other factories need to be allowed in to give good jobs to good people that won't kill them in the process. Save our town!!

We are not given 24 hours notice for drug tests. I don't know who told you that but you were misinformed. And yes, there are probably people there that do and sell drugs. Just like everywhere else. Most of the people you know that work there sell drugs? Then maybe you should quit hanging out with drug dealers. If they shut the mill down the whole town suffers. Millions of dollars of income will no longer be spent here. Everyone else will be laying off and Covington will become a ghost town and most of its citizens will be on government assistance. Before you go bad mouthing it maybe you should work there and see what it's really like. Or have you already tried and didn't get hired?

No, but it will keep the economy going. Without the mill many local businesses will either shut down or start laying off. And if the mill shuts down what makes you think other industries will come here? They could come here now but they're not. If people are concerned about their health so much then they should move. Putting 1000s of people out of work isn't the answer. Until someone can come up with a real plan that will provide well paying jobs the mill is needed here.

Whoever judged my answer as clueless or nuts obviously doesn't understand how the economy works. Ignorance never ceases to amaze me.

Cheryl wrote:

No, but it will keep the economy going. Without the mill many local businesses will either shut down or start laying off. And if the mill shuts down what makes you think other industries will come here? They could come here now but they're not. If people are concerned about their health so much then they should move. Putting 1000s of people out of work isn't the answer. Until someone can come up with a real plan that will provide well paying jobs the mill is needed here.