Brascan Corp.’s tentative agreement to purchase of Great Northern Paper brings both relief and, for the first time in months, a chance to look somberly at what the future of the region might be like. Or it would if a small but important part of the deal can be completed. Without trampling anyone’s rights and with respect to the legal process, all parties involved, including the state, should ensure that the debate over a landfill used by GNP is swiftly concluded and the deal for the mills goes through.

Brascan, a Toronto-based company that owns and manages real estate, financial services and power generation, already owns hydro facilities once part of GNP as well as Fraser Paper. It appears to have a healthy corporate concern for the future of Millinocket and East Millinocket, although its actions in the coming months will more clearly describe its plans there. As a last-minute bidder, it likely offered the best opportunity to prevent the mill towns from collapsing from the loss of the mills.

The sticking point in completing this agreement, worth more than $100 million and hundreds of jobs, is a landfill that Great Northern’s board of directors transferred to departing owner Lambert Bedard and his company, Inexcon Maine, a couple of years ago. Whether the transfer was completed legally – the state Department of Environmental Protection says it wasn’t – and how it might be returned to GNP for its use are in dispute. The landfill was worth $3 million when it was transferred two years ago, according to court documents.

From the announcement that GNP would become bankrupt, public officials have unanimously concluded it was crucial that the mills be brought back on line as soon as possible. The condition of the facilities depended on it and the skilled work force would not wait around forever. This is still true, and with an agreement to restart the mills so close, no side of this should allow such a comparatively small issue as the landfill to stand in the way of the larger deal.

A region’s future rides on the successful outcome of the agreement.