Transition Team works to assist laid-off G-P mill workers

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BANGOR – Some $10,000 is available for laid-off workers who need assistance buying heating fuel, but that money isn’t expected to last long, members of the Penobscot County Transition Team said Wednesday.

United Way of Eastern Maine had received about $4,600 in donations that is being used for fuel assistance, but it is expected to run out by the end of the week.

“It’s going quick,” Jen Brooks of Penquis CAP said at Wednesday’s transition team meeting.

The Eastern Maine Labor Council’s Food and Medicine program also has about $7,000 that it is administering to laid-off Georgia-Pacific Corp. workers, and Bangor Savings Bank has donated $5,000 to the Good Neighbor Fund through Penquis CAP that will be used to help any laid-off workers in the county.

Later this month, Penquis CAP, with the help of Clear Channel Radio, will kick off a drive in an attempt to match those funds with community dollars.

To access the money, laid-off workers in need of fuel assistance can contact peer support worker Jim England at the Bangor CareerCenter or Penquis CAP to fill out an eligibility form. Each approved applicant will receive 100 gallons of fuel.

Red Shield Environmental, the company that bought the former G-P mill, also has done some giving.

A few days before Christmas, company officials dropped off 127 gifts to Crossroads Ministries food pantry to give away at their Secret Santa shop.

“I think they’re going to be a real community-minded group,” Crossroads Director Brenda Davis said of Red Shield. “That was very refreshing.”

At the mill site, Red Shield has been busy operating the boiler and making electricity to sell into the power grid.

There now are 55 Red Shield employees at the site, with 52 of those being former G-P employees.

“We’re making plenty of power,” plant manager Dick Arnold said Wednesday. “We’re running the boiler and the turbine generator at its rate of capacity, which means we can’t run it any more.”

Red Shield is the owner and manager of the site, and two other companies have signed on to the redevelopment project.

The other companies are Lamtec Inc., a maker of pressure-sensitive labels, and Hallowell International LLC, a low-temperature heat pump manufacturer.

Tamarack Energy, a renewable-energy developer, originally was slated to operate the biomass boiler with plans to sell electricity and eventually convert the boiler to produce ethanol.

That plan, however, has changed and Tamarack’s services weren’t needed for the boiler start-up or operation, Arnold said.

“We felt the [Red Shield] employees were capable, and they were,” Arnold said. “Things are going very well.”

Red Shield is burning a 50-50 mix of sorted construction and demolition debris waste wood and green wood chips in the biomass boiler.

“We’re meeting all our emissions criteria and things are running well,” Arnold said.

As plans move forward, Red Shield is talking to other potential tenants for the site.

“We’re looking at different options at this time to try to get more activity on site,” Arnold said.

Status of former Georgia-Pacific Corp. millworkers

459 workers were laid off March 16

52 employed by mill redeveloper Red Shield Environmental

23 retired

29 taking classes

15 expected to start classes later this month

130 (appx.) working full-time elsewhere

10 working part-time elsewhere

2 moved out-of-state

195 remain unemployed or status is unknown