© 2024 Maine Public | Registered 501(c)(3) EIN: 22-3171529
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Scroll down to see all available streams.

After 80 Years of Making Paper, Maine Mill Headed for Metal Scrap Heap

Charles Beck
/
MPBN

BUCKSPORT, Maine — Officials in Bucksport and Augusta are expressing dismay at Verso Paper's decision to sell its idle Bucksport mill to a Canadian scrap metal recycler.

Verso officials announced the deal late yesterday. Montreal-based American Iron and Metal will acquire the mill - and it's attached, natural gas-fired power plant - for $60 million. The sale is a setback for Verso's more than 500, soon-to-be-ex employees - and for state and local officials trying to find a buyer that wants to make paper in Bucksport.

Dave Milan is one of those local officials. Milan is Bucksport's economic development director. He's lived in the town of around 5,000, near the mouth of the Penobscot River, his whole life. Many of Milan's high school buddies went to work at the mill, right after graduating.

"I've had several companies contact me and say, 'We're interested in buying the mill,' some to make paper, some to re-purpose it as other things," he says.

Milan says he forwarded all of these queries to top officials with Verso Paper in Memphis, Tennessee, where the company is headquartered. "In my follow-up calls with those companies, they never received any acknowledgement from Verso, whatsoever," he says.

"The governor is very concerned about the leadership at Verso and some of the decision-making that has been taking place," says Gov. Paul LePage's press secretary, Adrienne Bennett.

Bennett says Gov. LePage doesn't want to see the mill become a scrap metal demolition site. She says LePage and his advisers have also been trying to find a buyer who sees a viable business opportunity in Bucksport and wants to keep the mill whole.

"If there is a way the state can step in, it will do so, in the best interests of these employees," Bennett says. "The governor is now looking into whatever options may be available to him and will proceed as necessary."

But options to keep the mill intact took a big hit Friday, when Verso's general counsel signed an SEC document, alerting investors to a deal to sell the mill and power plant.

A Verso spokesperson did not return calls for comment by airtime. AIM - American Iron and Metal - will buy Verso's Bucksport assets for $60 million.

"It definitely made me less optimistic, I'll tell you that, when I heard who they sold it to," says Emery Deabay, the president of United Steelworkers Local 1188. Last year, AIM bought, and later demolished, another Verso mill in Sartell, Minnesota. "Their main business is metal," Deabay says.

The Sartell site is now being redeveloped. Officials with AIM did not return calls for comment by airtime.

Town officials, meantime, are expressing frustration with Verso, a company they say they've bent over backward to help during its years as Bucksport's largest employer and taxpayer.

"We have gone to the Legislature and testified on their behalf, on a multitude of bills that have been helpful to the mill. We've helped them get bonding. We believe we've been a very good partner. And I just don't believe this is the way your supposed to treat good partners."

Verso is also facing criticism for its handling of severance payments to its soon-to-be unemployed workforce. Emery Deabay, the union president, says the company wants to wait three months to pay workers severance and accumulated vacation time. The last Verso workers are due to finish up at the mill by the end of the month. State law requires Verso to pay severance within eight days of an employee's last day.

The LePage administration says it's prepared to file suit against the company if state law is not followed.