News from Millinocket about the potential closure of the Katahdin Mill, and 208 Mainers facing layoff in a troubling economy, must move officials to wield their own, old, saw: An ounce of prevention equals a pound of cure.

Katahdin, one of Maine’s pulp and paper mills, is among the state’s highest consumers of oil, and was therefore exposed to oil’s stratospheric rise in price. Yet it would be shortsighted to consider its vulnerability as unique.

Nobody is immune from energy prices.

Though no longer an iconic industry, pulp and paper remains a major plank of Maine’s economic foundation. The Maine Pulp & Paper Association, the industry’s lobbying arm, boasts mill spending in Maine was $900 million in 2004.

Yet the most important statistic is salary: mill jobs still pay wages above $50,000 annually. These are the kinds of jobs Maine is not creating, especially in rural regions. Mills, although different in scope, are still a lifeblood.

Their preservation must be viewed as critical, and their loss feared. Mill and government officials alike must start thinking about what’s needed to stave off other potential Katahdin announcements, as energy prices hurtle heavenward.

A precedent is set. Gov. John Baldacci already marshaled an emergency response in the transportation portion of the forest products industry to respond to diesel costs. In a bold action, he quickly found ways the state could relax regulations to improve conditions for truckers.

And today, outside the State House, Gov. Baldacci was scheduled to announce a new state lending program for helping truckers deal with the rising cost of diesel.

But there is no Maine forest products industry without mills. If the state can act smartly to aid truckers, it makes sense to help the mills as well, or risk seeing both suffer.

This is a duty for mills as well. Their importance to their local economies – and Maine’s in general – should pre-empt any suffering in silence. Everyone is feeling energy prices; if there’s something the mills need, it won’t hurt to ask.

To re-open Katahdin, the company says an alternate energy source must be found. The preferred, a biomass boiler, could take two years and $50 million to construct. For a community facing a mill closure, this is an eternity.

Gov. Baldacci has committed the state’s full assistance. “My administration is fully engaged in an effort to see the mill re-opened,” he said in a statement. “I believe the company’s energy problem can be solved.”

We hope he’s right. And we hope any energy problems of others can be prevented if stakeholders act now.