OLD TOWN (AP) – Red Shield Environmental, which has begun producing pulp at the former Georgia-Pacific mill, has created another 130 jobs, bringing the total employment to 180 people, officials said.

The workers were among 450 G-P employees who lost their jobs more than a year ago when the plant was closed, said Dick Arnold, plant manager.

Maine Gov. John Baldacci was on hand for the official announcement Monday that the plant had resumed pulp production, which will help support Red Shield’s eventual goal of producing ethanol at the Old Town site.

Originally, there were no plans for pulp production after the G-P tissue mill closed last year. Instead, Red Shield wanted to produce electricity from the biomass boiler and eventually extract ethanol from wood cellulose.

Now Red Shield hopes to produce 400 to 500 pounds of pulp a day, turning out 150,000 tons or more a year to be sold on the market. Material from the pulping process will be utilized by an experimental ethanol production process created by the University of Maine that produces acetic acid as well as ethanol.

In addition to ethanol, the process creates other salable byproducts, such as carbon dioxide for beverage carbonation and dry ice.

“This is the first step in the overall ethanol production process,” Arnold said.