John Godfrey of Marblehead, Massachusetts, foreground, and Bob Berry of Main-Land Development Consultants in Livermore Falls and Falmouth, left, meet Tuesday with the Jay Planning Board, which approved a shoreland zoning permit for Godfrey’s Godfrey Forest OSB Mill. Planning Board members seated at the table, from left, are Brandon Hobbs, Jamie Carden-Leventhal, Dan Ryder, Michael Fournier, Vice Chairperson Susan Theberge Chairperson Barbara Cook. Donna M. Perry/Sun Journal

JAY — The Planning Board voted Tuesday to approve a shoreland zoning permit for the Godfrey Forest OSB Mill to be built at the site of the former Androscoggin paper mill at 300 Riley Road.

Bob Berry of Jay, owner of Main-Land Development Consultants in Livermore Falls and Falmouth, explains to the Jay Planning Board on Tuesday the Godfrey Forest Products proposed new oriented strand board manufacturing mill. The board approved a shoreland zoning permit at their meeting at the Jay Town Office. Donna M. Perry/Sun Journal

Godfrey Forest Products has a purchase and sale agreement for 67 acres owned by JGT2 Redevelopment. The Godfrey property, which would include the former log yard, small buildings and structures, the former chip pile, and a parking lot would be demolished, reconstructed, or reused for the new oriented strand board mill.

The operation would cover 14.2 acres, of which 3.9 acres is within the general development district of the shoreland zone. None of it is within in setback requirements of the zone, Bob Berry, owner of Main-Land Development Consultants of Livermore Falls, said.

About 380 square feet of the new building will be in the shoreland zone but not within the setback requirement. The building will be over 30 feet above the base floodplain zone, he said.

The parking lot will be removed to make room for the new building.

The Alden Hill Road, off Crash Road, will be improved for trucks traveling to the mill. The railroad access line will have a short extension to the mill, Berry said.

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John Godfrey of Marblehead, Massachusetts, owner of Godfrey Forest Products, showed some of the oriented strand board products, including sheathing and framing lumber, made at his mills in Houlton, New York, Scotland and New Brunswick, Canada.

He will use the abundance of small white and red pine trees that are within 125 miles of Jay to make the product. He could also use poplar but other mills depend on that wood source.

The Androscoggin paper mill was heavily damaged when a digester blew up April 15, 2020. Pixelle Specialty Solutions in Pennsylvania closed the mill in March 2023.

“This is a mill town” and it will continue to be a mill town with the oriented strand board manufacturing done at the new mill, Godfrey said.

He said he has an agreement with Eagle Creek Renewable Energy to power the mill. Eagle Creek owns and runs the hydropower generators in the area, including two in Jay and one each in Livermore and Livermore Falls.

The mill will operate seven days a week, 24 hours a day with the exception of eight hours a week of downtime for maintenance, Godfrey said.

There are plenty of people trained to run a paper machine in the area and they can switch that knowledge to running OSB manufacturing equipment, he said. He anticipates hiring about 125 employees. Loggers and other vendors will also benefit from the manufacturing operation.

He applied in June for an air permit and Maine Department of Environmental Protection site location of development permit.

He is hoping to begin working on the new mill in early 2025 but it will all depend on receiving permits, getting the equipment that would include hydraulic presses, and world events including wars. The presses are made in Germany and those businesses have been busy building military equipment for the war effort in Ukraine, Godfrey said.

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