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 |  | Beaupr� Paper Mill To Be Demolished
< on 10/13/2010 12:59 AM >
|  | | | From this morning's Gazoo.
A tale of two paper plants
Scrap king seals fate of one, holds hope for the other
By MARK CARDWEL, The Gazette October 12, 2010
In life as in hockey, Christian Fortin is a fierce competitor.
That's why he refused to abandon hope a year ago, when the AbitibiBowater paper mill was closed in his hometown of Beaupre, a 20-minute drive east of Quebec City.
"I was sure we could get it reopened," said the former senior league goalie, a papermaker at the plant for 25 years. "People just had to want it badly enough."
Those hopes were finally quashed last month, however, when efforts to find a new vocation for the mill were officially abandoned.
The mill's fate was sealed last week when a demolition permit was issued to its new owner, Montreal-based metal recycler American Iron & Metal Co. -or AIM.
"I'm bitter," said Fortin, a vice president of Local 253 of the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers Union of Canada, which represents a third of the 340 plant workers who lost their jobs in Beaupre -most of them middle-aged family men like him.
"A lot of people let us down -the company, the politicians,
a lot of locals, fellow workers. It's tough to swallow." Compare those sentiments
to renewed hopes at another closed AbitibiBowater plant in nearby Donnaconna, a
20-minute drive west of the provincial capital.
Like the plant in Beaupre and mills in Dalhousie, N.B. and Thunder Bay, Ont., it was purchased by AIM from debt-strapped AbitibiBowater for $8.7 million in June.
A group of investors are reportedly interested in investing as much as $75 million to transform the Donnaconna plant into a cardboard manufacturing facility.
"I don't want to create any false hopes," outgoing town mayor Andre Marcoux said earlier this week. "But we have a project, a product (and) investors."
According to Marcoux, who recently announced that he will resign on Oct. 5 after eight years as mayor of Donnaconna "for personal reasons," a feasibility study has concluded that the proposed project would be profitable.
He added that cardboard manufacturing tests involving the $200 million worth of papermaking machinery that AbitibiBowater installed in the plant in 2000 "gave very positive results."
Marcoux also noted that the project skirts the non-competition clause that prohibits AIM from using its new plants to make newsprint or selling them to an entity that would.
AIM also assumed all environmental liabilities associated with the closed mills.
Though he refused to reveal the identity of the potential investors, Marcoux said they were Canadian and were active in the international cardboard industry.
He added that the proposed project would create roughly half as many jobs as the 240 that were lost when AbitibiBowater closed the Donnaconna facility in March, 2008.
According to Marcoux, the next stage in the project is a meeting between the promoters and AIM's president and chief executive officer, Herbert Black, to try and hammer out an agreement.
Dubbed Montreal's 'Scrap Metal King' because of the fortune his family-owned business has made in the recycling trade since it opened in 1936, Black said he was "totally flexible to help the people" when he bought the four closed plants in June.
Under the terms of the deal, his family's firm agreed to pay AbitibiBowater 40 per cent of the money it made from an eventual sale of paper machines in the plants above and beyond the sales price.
Even if it ends up selling the machines for scrap, AIM would reportedly pay at least $5 million to the broke paper company, which has been under bankruptcy protection since April, 2009.
Last month, AbitibiBowater finally got approval for its restructuring plan from its Canadian and American creditors.
Black told The Gazette last week that he is still willing "to co-operate with anyone who comes along with a feasible project for any of the plants."
He expressed doubt, however, about the seriousness of the purported plan for the Donnaconna plant.
"I have my doubts," said Black. He added that he met with Marcoux and other representatives of a local plant-saving committee this summer to discuss the possibilities for the facility.
"I haven't heard anything for a month of two that would make me believe this is serious," Black said. "But I'd be happy to see something happen because I prefer to keep jobs in Quebec."
However, he insists he won't give away a property that he values at between $25 million and $30 million.
He held out little hope for either Donnaconna or Beaupre, which he called "a beautiful piece of property."
Black wouldn't speculate on if or when either or both plants would be demolished.
"We are doing eight paper plants at the moment," he said. "There's a lot behind it. You need permits and permission from various bodies. It takes time."
Beaupre mayor Michel Pare, who was elected to a first term of office just days after the mill closed last year said he is resigned to the fate of the 82-year-old mill and longtime lifeblood of the community.
"I don't want to give anyone a false sense of hope," Pare said. "The mill will be torn down and the area cleaned up."
He added that the site is now being shopped around on behalf of AIM to industries that may be interested in exploiting its riverside location and proximity to major roads and a railway, which runs through the yard.
It is also features a capacity of 80 to 100 megawatts of power and 45,000 cubic metres of water a day.
It is also a short drive from both the Mont St. Anne ski resort and the provincial capital, which is gearing up for another bid to host the Winter Olympics.
"The site has exceptional potential," Pare said.
For Fortin, who has recycled himself by opening a restoration business for old cars not far from the now-silent paper plant, the sooner the building is gone the better.
"It makes me sick to see the place now," he said. "I hope they get it down tomorrow so we can forget about it and get on with our lives."
© Copyright (c) The Montreal Gazette
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