HANOVER – The River Valley Growth Council board on Wednesday agreed to accept the former Diamond Match mill in Peru. It also approved continuing negotiations for a plan to enter into a partnership with a Canadian company for ownership of a pilot oil-making plant.

The Archibald family of Mexico had offered the plant to the council to develop a site for several businesses. The only thing holding it up was possible costs for cleaning up pollutants.

On Wednesday, growth council economic developer Scott Christiansen said chances are strong that a $200,000 Environmental Protection Agency grant would come through, providing funds for the cleanup. He said taking ownership of the plant and the six acres on which it sits is particularly important because of the probability it will become a portion of one of the state’s Pine Tree Zones.

This state-supported program offers tax incentives and exemptions to attract new businesses.

Christiansen said the final papers should be signed within 45 days. Since more than $200,000 will likely be needed to clean up the abandoned site, he said some of the planking inside the building will be sold. More funds are expected to be raised to clean up other portions of the 164,000-square-foot building.

“The Department of Environmental Protection is willing to work with us,” he said.

The board also agreed to authorize Christiansen to continue negotiations with Canadian/American energy company Enerkem of Sherbrooke, P.Q., to make the growth council and Enerkem owners of a pilot plant that would produce an oil from waste wood. The plan is for the oil to be produced through pyrolysis, and to have multiple uses. The new company would be known as Kemfor.

The council is supplying political capital and federal Department of Energy funds, if the grant is approved, while Enerkem is contributing patent licenses as well as research and technical expertise.

Construction of the pilot plant is contingent upon a Department of Energy grant of $3.3 million. Christiansen, a researcher from Enerkem, and growth council President Joseph Derouche have pleaded their case in Washington, D.C., and have discussed the potential pyrolysis project with the National Renewable Energy Lab in Colorado. Researchers at the University of Maine have also been working on the project.

Christiansen said the growth council will know whether the grant is successful in February.

The board also welcomed new members Linda Kurasy, who will represent the private sector of Roxbury, and Greg Buccina, who will represent the private sector of Rumford. Each of the 10 towns represented by the growth council is entitled to at least one representative from the private and one representative from the public sector.

eadams@sunjournal.com

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