Old Town mill may benefit from Chinese tariff

OLD TOWN – A new tariff on Chinese imports may help Red Shield Environmental as it continues to start up and operate the pulp manufacturing operation at the former Georgia-Pacific Corp. mill, Ed Paslawski, Red Shield’s chairman and chief executive officer, said Monday.

The pulp operation was restarted last week after being dormant for more than a year, and so far things are going well, Paslawski said.

“We’ve shipped over seven rail cars already and I don’t know how many trucks,” he said.

Initially, the majority of the pulp will be sold to overseas markets, but Paslawski said he hopes the new tariff will allow more of the product to stay in the United States.

The Bush administration recently imposed further trade sanctions on paper imported from three countries, including China.

“This will have amazing positive benefits for our projects,” Paslawski said.

The company also got more good news Monday when the Finance Authority of Maine approved changes to Red Shield’s $1 million loan.

“They were mostly changes in the use of funds,” FAME’s general counsel, Beth Bordowitz, said Monday.

Originally, Red Shield officials requested the loan to pay for a large piece of equipment, but Paslawski said they were able to buy the machinery used and instead will use the money for other associated startup costs.

“It was very expensive to restart the mill,” he said.

So far, the pulp operation is running smoothly, although Red Shield environmental manager Dick Arnold said Monday the company still considers the process to be in startup mode.

“We’re balancing out all our processes, [but] things are going well,” he said, referring to the operations involved in producing pulp. “We’re making prime-grade pulp for sale.”

Earlier this year, the facility had problems with toxic levels of lead being found in ash samples taken from the boiler, and in two separate incidents with soot falling onto homes and yards in neighboring Bradley. Bradley is directly across the Penobscot River from the mill.

Those problems since have been resolved, and the boiler is up and running on a mixture of green wood chips and 25 percent construction and demolition debris to heat the facility and to produce electricity, which is sold to the power grid.

“We may up that towards the end of the week,” Arnold said of the percentage of waste wood chips being used as fuel.

The boiler is permitted to burn up to 500 tons of fuel a day. Half of that fuel can be construction and demolition debris, which is sorted waste wood that is less expensive than green chips.

Although the recent violations could result in fines from the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, it is likely that the penalties will be offset by corrective measures, according to previous statements by DEP Commissioner David Littell.

DEP officials have been at the site regularly working with Red Shield officials to ensure that everything is working properly, Arnold said.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency also is requiring monitoring information from the facility, and after a 12-month compliance deadline, EPA officials will determine the need for penalties or actions.

“There’s always a few bumps,” Paslawski said. “But the pulp quality has exceeded our expectations.”