A reason for Millinocket to exist beyond supplying outdoor recreation

[peakbagger]

I expect most folks who have driven through East Millinocket and Millinocket Maine over the years have noticed the long term decline as the mills sputtered out. The Golden Road which used to be the fast alternative to getting up past Abol Bridge has turned into pothole filled road that has gotten to the point where they are ripping the pavement off in sections so they can grade it. Even though the seasonal outdoor recreation industry supplements the local economy it really is unable to support things like hospitals grocery stores and even restaurants and lodging (and to some folks the strip club). What is left over from the papermills era have been hanging on but little investment has been made and there are more than few vacant buildings especially on Main Street. The popular AT Café was reportedly almost given away to the new owners who turned it seasonal.

The addition of a value added forest products manufacturing plant is definitely a plus, its not going to replace the mills but will put new full time direct jobs and support indirect jobs in the region

https://www.woodworkingnetwork.com/...er-producer-build-plant-maine-create-100-jobs

Hopefully this one is successful where the prior biocoal plant was not. The trade off as usual is the business like the biocoal project will be heavily subsidized and that's always an issue as the area has been burned far too many times by out of state developers coming in under the guise of economic development that really were there to grab a big chunk of the subsidy money. Hopefully this one sticks. This is not the first attempt in Maine to do CLT, another company built a plant in Orono Maine about 20 years ago and promptly went bankrupt as they couldn't compete with southern production. CLT is now regarded as a big "green" way to build buildings and with the regional demand for "green" I hope they catch on. If it does the business could expand rapidly all over Maine.

 

[egilbe]

What's going to happen when the spruce budworm rears it's ugly head in a few more years? Cheap building material, or vast swsths of fire hazard?

 

[MikePS]

interesting article this past week in the Boston Globe on life in Millinocket, attempts to develop some remote tech industry.

 

[TomK]

interesting article this past week in the Boston Globe on life in Millinocket, attempts to develop some remote tech industry.

Here is a link...

https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2...ts-comeback/oBBfIaUeAUlP6kBw0X1slO/story.html

TomK

 

[peakbagger]

The globe article is a "feel good" article and that is a popular format for the globe, the intermediate history that they skip over is pretty extensive and flavors the conversation.

The state of Maine rolled the dice early in the internet era and did run a lot of state subsidized fiber all over the state. Here is an overview http://www.maine.gov/connectme/documents/TRBsummaryfortheBBSC.pdf At the time it was regarded as state of the art but expect its not as state of the art as it once was. It attracted a lot of call centers located in areas of the state with a young work population and high unemployment. I think there was a major hub that was planned for Millinocket but dont know if it got installed.

I dont live there and never have. I have known people who have and I was on the periphery of a firm that was looking to buy it and start making paper again at one point but it all tumbled down in heartbeat. I have been up there on business with a couple of owners and even got to stay in the company guest house once. I dont know if things have changed but one of the many issues with the area is that at one point the mills were supported by the biggest private hydroelectric system in the east with super low power costs. At some point one of the many owners was in financial trouble and a group of Canadian investors, called Brookfield got a hold of the hydro system. The state was worried about keeping the mills competitive and forced Brookfield to agree to sell the mills cheap power under market cost. This is green dispatchable renewable power and southern new england will pay a premium for it. Thus despite public claims to the contrary Brookfield really didnt want a large power user at the site. Several years later when the mills were up for sale again, they bought the mills through their Fraser division and starved them of the capital investment to make them competitive again which caused them to close for the last time. Then they brought in a manager that decided to tear down and scrap the majority of the equipment required to make it of any value to a future purchaser. Brookfield pulled the same sort of deal in Berlin NH which is one of the many reasons the pulp mill was shut down and then subsequently torn down and has started the process in Rumford Maine 10 years ago by buying the hydroelectric system. (One of their first investments in Rumford was to install switching equipment to allow them to turn off the power to the mill to separate the power systems)

The bud worm epidemic will dump a lot of wood on the market if there is market for it. Large landowners have slowed back on cutting hoping markets appear. To date the budworm is sporadic in Quebec but has held off hitting most of maine. The budworms are native and the growth conditions fro an epidemic are there, the population just hasnt exploded yet. The CLT technology is not rocket science so if a demand springs up and the budworm hits that area the equipment can be moved to wherever there is spruce and fir. There is plenty of similar forest land in Quebec and if Maine develops the market for CLT you will see government subsidized plants going into Eastern Quebec and New Brunswick as they are both economically depressed.

 

[Brambor]

I finished a BSP thru yesterday and was shuttled from Mattagammon to Abol Bridge by a man who ran a hunting lodge for 40 years and now has passed the torch to his children. He talked about the new plant and thought it was going to add about 100 jobs. He did not think it would be jobs for those who lost employment in the past mill operations as he thought those worker slowly aged out but he was positive about the whole impact of the plant as it would bring additional interest and revitalization into the area. He already mentioned a positive influx on the towns from the new National Monument and mentioned the challenges of reduced numbers of hunters and fishermen overall. But he noted an uptick in hiking and canooeing business (he shuttles canoes up and down the golden road all summer now)