WESTBROOK (AP) – A paper-making machine and a finishing machine are at risk of being shut down at the Sappi Westbrook mill.

Officials with Sappi Fine Papers North America said a final decision on the machines has yet to be made. But union officials said they were told last month that the paper machine will be shut down.

If that happens, 65 to 70 employees would lose their jobs, said Tom Lestage, president of the Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy (PACE) workers union at Sappi.

“We were told it was not a matter of if, but a matter of when,” Lestage said.

A shutdown of either machine would be a blow to the mill, where employment has fallen from about 2,300 workers in 1990, when the plant was owned by S.D. Warren Co., to about 550 now.

Lestage said Sappi officials told him that the No. 14 paper machine, which is at least a century old, is too outdated for new investment. He said the mill also has plans to cut another 30 to 35 jobs this fall.

When Sappi announced in April that it was reducing operations at the Westbrook mill from four-person to three-person crews, the company blamed the drop-off in demand for paper products and increased foreign competition. Nearly half of coated sheet paper bought in the United States is made in Europe and Asia.

Lestage, who has worked at the mill for 21 years, said the union has been without a contract for a year and employees have not had a raise in two years.

“Not that that’s one of the primary issues,” he said.

The mill used to pay nearly half of all Westbrook’s property taxes. Now it accounts for just 5 percent of the city’s tax revenues.

As the mill’s presence in the city has continued to erode, Westbrook has focused on downtown revitalization to improve the local economy, said Mayor Don Esty.

“We’ve seen throughout the entire region the impacts of global competition in the paper industry, and in Westbrook we’ve worked hard over the last few years to be proactive in bringing diversity to the tax base,” Esty said. “The despair that exists in many towns that were simply mill towns doesn’t exist here.”

Lestage said he heard about the plans for the paper machine during a meeting last month with Sappi officials at PACE headquarters in Nashville, Tenn. He thought the meeting was going to focus on improving the relationship between the union and the company.

“I was very upset that I had to come back and tell another 100 members that there’s a potential they’re going to lose their jobs,” he said. “(Sappi executives) said they want us to be happy working for Sappi. How can we be comfortable with Sappi when, since they came to town, they’ve eroded our employment base?”

AP-ES-07-13-03 1116EDT