MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) – International Paper announced Thursday that it would begin a two-week test burn of tire chips at its Ticonderoga, N.Y., mill. Vermont officials vowed in response to continue their legal fight to stop the test.

The “tire-derived fuel trail in the Ticonderoga Mill’s power boiler is scheduled to start on November 6, 2006 at 9 a.m.,” said a letter sent by IP to the New York state Department of Environmental Conservation on Thursday. It said testing of emissions from the boiler’s smoke stack would begin at the same time.

Vermont officials received a copy of the letter, prompting Gov. Jim Douglas to issue a statement saying, “My resolve to pursue all available legal remedies is firm. My office is in consultation with Attorney General (William) Sorrell about this latest development and we expect to have an announcement early next week as to our next steps.”

Douglas spokesman Jason Gibbs said the governor and Sorrell would “announce next week about what our precise next steps will be.” He declined to elaborate. “Because they are very likely to involve legal action, we don’t want to give away our legal strategy,” Gibbs said.

IP last month won final permission from New York regulators to run a two-week test in which it will burn “tire-derived fuel” in a boiler it uses to run an electrical generating turbine and produce steam for its papermaking processes.

Vermont officials have strongly opposed the plan for the mill on the shore of Lake Champlain, saying it threatens to send pollution bearing toxic heavy metals into the Green Mountain State.

Douglas has demanded that IP install state-of-the-art pollution control equipment before being allowed to run the test burn.

“I am prepared to exhaust all available options to prevent this potentially toxic tire burn without appropriate safeguards in place,” the governor said.

The company has responded by saying the test burn is designed in part to tell it what type of pollution control equipment it should use.

IP spokeswoman Donna Wadsworth said Thursday that the company’s permit for a test burn allows it to burn up to three tons of tire fuel power hour during the two week period.

AP-ES-10-05-06 1826EDT