EAST MILLINOCKET (AP)

– After being idle for six months, one of Katahdin Paper Co.’s two paper mills resumed scaled-back production with up to 400 workers this week in East Millinocket.

The No. 6 machine went on line Sunday and the No. 5 machine was restarted Wednesday, said Kathryn Vyse, spokeswoman for Brascan Corp., the Toronto-based owner of the mills.

“The machines didn’t give us a real hard time,” said Glenn Saucier, human resources manager for Katahdin Paper. “We’re hoping they’re going to be running for a long, long time.”

Altogether, about 350 to 400 workers are making newsprint in East Millinocket, while the Millinocket mill remains idle, Vyse said.

Carroll Freeman of Millinocket said residents in the region are happy to see cars in the parking lot and smoke coming from stacks of one of the former Great Northern Paper Inc. mills.

“It makes you have a little hope. At least there are 400 of them working,” said Freeman, a former employee of Great Northern employee who wrote a centennial history of the company.

Great Northern employed more than 1,100 people at the two mills before the previous owner, Inexcon Maine, shut them down in late December and filed for bankruptcy a month later.

Brascan bought the mills in East Millinocket and Millinocket for $103 million and hired Nexfor Fraser Papers Inc. to run the operation. Brascan owns 42 percent of Nexfor Inc., parent company of Nexfor Fraser Papers.

It is unknown when Katahdin will reopen the Millinocket mill. In April, Brascan indicated it wants to invest up to $60 million to install a new bleach chemithermo-mechanical-pulping operation.

If all goes well, another 175 people would be hired to operate that mill when it reopens, officials say.