When the Nice Northern Paper mill in East Millinocket completely closed its doorways in 2014, 80 p.c of the city’s tax base and the livelihoods of many households within the area went with it. Now, a former U.S. congressman who labored on the mill for many years has emerged as the most important cheerleader of the positioning’s redevelopment.
Its future might embody photo voltaic panels, biofuels and biochar.
This story is a part of Maine Public’s “ Local weather Pushed: A deep dive into Maine’s response, one county at a time” local weather investigation collection.
Driving across the East Millinocket mill website on a sunny morning in late June, Mike Michaud recollects the time when it was the middle of the group.
“It was the biggest employer, the most important taxpayer and other people from throughout the area labored right here,” he stated. “It devastated the group and the area when the corporate closed.”
Michaud understood the devastation higher than most. He’d began working on the mill after highschool. His activism as a union millworker led to a political profession together with 12 years representing Maine’s 2nd District in Congress.
After he left that submit in a failed bid for governor, he assumed a smaller elected place — chair of the East Millinocket selectmen. Now he’s energetic in redeveloping the mill website, which the city purchased two years in the past. One of many tenants, Logistics Administration Techniques, is leasing the mill’s former paper warehouse.
“That warehouse is stuffed with paper, wooden merchandise, made right here in Maine, and it’s a reasonably busy place, and it’s good to see that the mill website is beginning to get revitalized — some within the forest merchandise sector, and others into new applied sciences, similar to photo voltaic,” Michaud stated.
Photo voltaic might be a giant a part of Convalt’s plans for the mill website. The New York firm plans to construct a group photo voltaic farm, and hopes to develop a plant right here by 2023 to recycle outdated photo voltaic panels.
One other firm hopes to supply wood-derived biofuels, like these used to warmth the campus of Bates Faculty. One other hopes to supply biochar, a climate-friendly fertilizer.
However Michaud says he doesn’t intention to create a type of green-tech hub. He’s primarily concerned about attracting a various group of employers.
“How can we diversify, so we’re not dependent upon one sector. That diversification, if you take a look at it sooner or later, is definitely in a number of the inexperienced know-how, photo voltaic,” he stated.
There’s a whole lot of assist for that imaginative and prescient within the space.
“I don’t imagine in local weather change, however I do imagine in inexperienced vitality,” stated Clint Linscott, who serves alongside Michaud on the board of selectmen and on a nonprofit that oversees the mill redevelopment.
Linscott runs a automotive restore store on Important Road, and says he’s wanting ahead to the mill’s revitalization.
“My household’s from right here, my dad’s a millworker, my granddad’s a millworker, I used to be a millworker. I bought completed again within the mid ’80s, and began my enterprise right here on Important Road. Everyone wished me luck, they didn’t suppose I might make it, as a result of the one place you labored right here was the mill, and that was the place the cash was. And it’s unhappy to see it gone,” he stated.
Throughout the road on the submit workplace, Carla Boutaugh says she, too, misses the mill.
“I used to be lucky. I all the time stated I used to be blessed to have the ability to work down there, it gave my household a superb dwelling,” she stated. She labored there for 22 years.
“Handbook labor, you recognize, pulling wooden, feeding grinders, taking Mike’s job when he went to the State Home,” she stated with amusing.
Boutaugh says she helps the revitalization plan, and that the entire city is rooting for Michaud.
“We’ve bought a superb man behind it. Mike’s actually a pusher. And he’s put his coronary heart and soul into the city and the mill,” she stated.
Again on the mill website, Michaud exhibits off an unlimited swath of inexperienced house at its western edge, alongside the West Department of the Penobscot River, the place he envisions strolling trails.
“You possibly can have a brew pub, lodge, condominium multi functional right here, on this explicit space. This can be a good space. You will have the Dolby Flowage. On the opposite facet you’ll be able to really see Mount Kathadin. It’s a ravishing space. And I’m informed that it’s nice bass fishing between the 2 dams,” he stated.
It’s a lofty dream, as a result of a lot of the mill website consists of weedy patches of pavement winding previous half-demolished buildings and piles of rubble. And there have been potholes within the street to redevelopment.
Commonplace Biocarbon, the biochar firm, has modified its plans, and determined to develop its first plant in Enfield, although it nonetheless hopes to finally develop a undertaking in East Millinocket. One other firm that had deliberate to open an information middle right here not too long ago backed out.
However Michaud stays undeterred.
“I’m very optimistic. It’s not going to occur in a single day. And I’m very cautious about what we promote on the market within the public. We haven’t had any open home or something like that as a result of all too typically you hear, nicely, this firm is coming, and it by no means exhibits up. You don’t wish to construct up expectations and allow them to fall,” he stated.
For now there’s simply the paper warehouse, a handful of Convalt workers offering safety to the positioning and a imaginative and prescient of what might be.
This story seems by a media partnership with Maine Public.
