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- Date:
1/4/2011
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An ongoing salvage operation at Red Rock’s former linerboard mill may not bode well for a future restart of the plant if absolutely everything is taken out, says the town’s mayor.
“There’s parts of the mill that we don’t want them to touch, like the finishing room and recovery boiler,” Gary Nelson said in an interview.
The salvage that began after the idle property was taken over by a St. Louis, Mo., businessman in 2007 has been a bit unsettling for locals to watch.
But the new owner of the plant, now called Red Rock Mill Inc., has also been trying to attract a potential co-gen operator.
Nelson said it’s his understanding that an unnamed Alberta company and a company from southern Ontario have both been exploring the possibility of installing a 50-megawatt generating station that would sell power into the provincial grid.
Red Rock Mill Inc. owner Bob Van Patten has also proposed manufacturing flooring underlayment in the plant, but that project appears to be on hold.
Van Patten said it’s been difficult to arrange financing in the tight global capital market of the last two years.
Terrace Bay Pulp faced a similar obstacle before it was able to restart in October.
When the Red Rock plant produced liner for boxes under former owner Norampac, it operated two paper machines.
No. 2 machine, the more modern of the two, has been removed and sold overseas.
The fate of No. 1 remains unclear. Some believe it has become a bone of contention between the salvage operation and the Township of Red Rock.
In May 2010, Van Patten said he had reached an agreement with the municipality to make good on unpaid property taxes for the years 2008 and 2009.
Nelson, meanwhile, said the town of 1,000 has worked hard to survive in the wake of the 2006 mill closure, which eliminated 400 high-paying jobs and a healthy industrial tax base.
“We’re doing pretty good for a town that doesn’t have any industry,” he said.
Adjustments included having to shut down the town’s recreation centre during summer months.
But Red Rock, right on Lake Superior, is far from a ghost town.
Nelson said only about 10 homes are for sale and the town is planning a meet-and-greet event in March so that locals like him and newcomers can get better acquainted.
“I drive around now and see so many new people that I don’t know,” he said.
Some of the new home buyers have been people from Thunder Bay looking to downsize to small-town life.
“You sell your house in Thunder Bay for $200,000, then come here and buy one for only $30,000 — that’s a pretty good deal,” Nelson remarked.
paperandwood.com