By Noah Manneville and Dannie Cooper, 2013
The Domtar Paper Mill in Plymouth, NC has been and continues to be the largest and most important source of income for Washington County over the past century. Opened in 1937 by the North Carolina Pulp Company, the mill itself has changed hands twice in its long history, having been bought by Weyerhaeuser in 1957 and then Domtar in 2007. At its peak, the mill employed over 2,000 people, (practically half of the population of Plymouth) making it the largest employer in Washington County, which it continues to be despite cutting down to just 450 employees.
The current mill manager, Dennis Askew, has been working at the Plymouth mill for 25 years and was promoted to manager five years ago. Dennis was born and raised in Plymouth. He met his wife, Lisa, in high school. “We were high school and college sweethearts,” she says. At age 19, Dennis began working at the mill, working part-time while studying civil engineering at North Carolina State University. Lisa studied politics at Campbell University, and then at the University of South Carolina Beaufort where she majored in nursing. They married in 1987 after graduating from college, and moved back to Plymouth, where Dennis continued to work at the mill while Lisa found a job in home health.
As we drove around the mill, Dennis’ knowledge and experience became evident. The way he describes the mill’s process makes it seem like he has held every job in the plant. He often highlights the extent of modernization in the mill, taking special pride in the mill’s most recent production highlight- lignin, a complex chemical compound that has potential as a fossil fuel alternative. Dennis explained that the mill itself no longer makes paper; it now produces two main products for sale. The first is fluff pulp, wood that has been chopped into chips, soaked in water, bleached, and dehydrated. The fluff pulp is used in feminine hygiene products, diapers, disposable medical gowns, and sanitary cleaning pads, such as the ones companies like Swiffer use. Most of the fluff pulp is exported through the Norfolk port in Virginia, where the Domtar mill enjoys the title of the port’s largest exporter.
The mill uses Loblolly Pine trees, the same tree that can be seen planted universally around the mill grounds to make all its products. About 300 loaded trucks pass through the mill every day, each carrying about four tons of un-stripped lumber. The wood is all local; trees felled for processing at the mill come from within 100 miles of the plant. Upon arriving at the plant, the trees are debarked in a rotating steel drum before being passed along a conveyor belt to be either processed immediately or removed and stacked in piles reaching over fifty feet tall. The bark and sap from the trees is retained and then burned to make electricity, which means that the mill produces no waste and converts enough thermal energy to remain entirely self-sufficient. In fact, the process is so efficient and there is such a large volume of material that the mill is able to sell excess energy back to the state power grid.
“Working in the home health field, I can see the demand for the products the mill makes,” said Lisa, who noted that disposable medical gowns were in high demand in her field. But this isn’t Lisa’s only tie to the mill. Lisa’s father and grandfather also worked in the mill. “Without the mill, the town would not survive,” Lisa said. She described Plymouth lovingly, but feared that the historic town was dying as places like the Domtar mill became less reliant on manpower and more computerized. It’s no wonder she feels this way either. With her grandmother, parents, and her family including her twin sons, Hunter and Chance, all living in Plymouth, the future of the mill affects her entire family, as well as their beloved hometown.