BERLIN, N.H. – While some residents worry about the impending closing of the Fraser pulp mill, others say it might be just what the city needs to move beyond its paper and pulp dependency.
The company said Tuesday it plans to close the mill on May 6, leaving 250 workers without jobs, the second time since 2001 the northern New Hampshire community has gone through the trauma of industrial retrenchment. The nearby Gorham paper plant will stay open.
“Almost everybody in my family has worked there at one time or another,” said Julia Sullivan, 72, who retired from the mill when it was operated by James River.
“They will have to leave town or we will have to find another avenue of income,” she said, adding that she opposes construction of a federal prison in the city and that aside from tourism there is no work in the city of 11,000 people.
But Eugenia Leath, 69, had a different view of the mill, which closed in 2001 and reopened in a scaled-down version when it was bought by Fraser.
“I wish the mill would have stayed closed so we could have gotten over the hump. This has just been a slow death,” she said.
“I have concerns about the people but you have to face facts, this mill is stopping the town from getting anyplace,” Leath said.
Mill officials were still sorting out which workers will actually get pink slips. Because workers are unionized, they have “bumping rights,” they said.
Berlin mill workers with enough seniority could bid on similar jobs at the Gorham paper plant or at other Fraser facilities such as the one in Madawaska, Maine.
No numbers were available on how many of the Berlin mill workers live in Maine, or how many subcontractors with Maine roots will be affected by the closure.
Mayor Robert Danderson said the city’s response will depend on what Fraser decides to do with the plant. He said the buildings could be used for a power plant or a wood-pellet fuel factory.
“We need to find out what their plan is before we make any big decisions,” he said, adding that the city is in better shape now than five years ago and pointed to the proposed federal prison, expansion of the state prison, development of an ATV park, expansion of Isaacson Steel Co. and construction of a Wal-Mart store.
“We have things in the hoper here that we didn’t have in 2001,” he said.
“My main goal is to make sure the people work,” the mayor said.
Gov. John Lynch pledged all available state support for the workers and their communities and planned to visit the city Friday.
Similarly, members of the state’s congressional delegation pledge their support.
The Berlin plant closing comes on the heels of the Groveton Paper Board Co. of Northumberland laying off 220 workers.
“Rising costs of wood, energy and chemicals over the past three years have led to a significant deterioration in the financial results at our pulp mill in Berlin, despite the efforts of our employees and the state of New Hampshire to improve the sustainability of the operations,” Dominic Gammiero, president and CEO of Fraser, said Tuesday.
“It’s devastating to this city and to this local,” said Gerard Coulombe, president of USW Local 75.
“I’m heartbroken,” said Gorham Selectman Paul Robitaille, a former mill worker, recognizing that the region’s wood forestry industry is shrinking.
In Maine there are at least nine pulp mills, according to the Maine Pulp and Paper Association.
“I think we had a reprieve,” Robitaille said, referring to the reopening of the Berlin-Gorham complex following the 2001 bankruptcy. “Now we have no choice. We have to move on,” he said.
The company said it will reposition its pulp business at the company’s pulp mill in Thurso, Quebec.
Comments are no longer available on this story