Wood-pellet firm eyed at G-P mill Red Shield says plant could employ 100 people

OLD TOWN – Owners have confirmed that a wood-pellet manufacturing company that could employ 100 people is expected to be part of Red Shield Environmental’s plan to redevelop the former Georgia-Pacific Corp. mill.

A German company is one of “several” that Red Shield officials are talking to, according to Edward Paslawski, Red Shield chairman and chief executive officer.

“We will have a wood-pellet company there,” he said earlier this week. “The site is ideal for wood-pellet manufacturers.”

It takes about six months to set up a pellet operation, but eventually such a facility would employ about 100 people.

“They will all be union jobs,” Paslawski said.

That’s exciting news for the more than 450 workers who lost their jobs when G-P decided to close the Old Town site last March.

Paslawski expects to have a deal within the next two months.

In the meantime, about 50 employees – 46 hourly and four salaried – are working to get the biomass boiler operating.

Red Shield, the owner and manager of the former mill facility, is the only company currently on site.

Once the boiler is operating and some revenue is coming in from electricity being sold into the power grid, other companies are expected to move in.

Those include Tamarack Energy, a renewable energy developer, which will operate the biomass boiler; Lamtec Inc., a maker of pressure-sensitive labels; and Hallowell International LLC, a low-temperature heat-pump manufacturer.

There was a slight delay in Red Shield’s initial start-up process because G-P refused to sign an agreement to allow Red Shield to sell electricity on the power grid, Paslawski said.

One such agreement now has been issued, and Paslawski said he expects to have another by Nov. 30.

“G-P wouldn’t sign an agreement to allow us to sell power, so we had to wait until after closing,” Paslawski said. “We had hoped to have more people back, but it just didn’t work that way.”

Plant Manager Dick Arnold said he holds a meeting each morning to decide what needs to be done for the day.

“We’ve run into all kinds of unexpected items,” he said.

Climbing up the boiler to hand out the first paychecks employees have received since the facility opened, Human Resources Manager Dan Bird explained that G-P was planning to demolish the mill.

“They didn’t destroy anything, [but it’s] just a lot of work to get it back up and going,” he said. “That’s been a lot of the stuff that’s been taking some time.”

Bird has been working 12- to 16-hour days in an attempt to get things running as soon as possible.

One of the mill’s oil furnaces has been fired up to get heat into the facility, and crews are working on the biomass boiler’s water system to get it ready.

“We have quite a bit of confidence that it’s going to come together,” Bird said.