Woodland Pulp of Baileyville has announced it is going dark temporarily due to lack of business and in the face of continuing challenges facing the industry.
The company “will pause manufacturing at its Baileyville pulp mill and wood chip plant from late November to mid-December,” a spokesman said.
Woodland is Washington County’s largest employer, and the layoffs will apply to about a third of the mill workforce.
Spokesman Scott Beal attributed the “extended downtime” to declining prices in the global pulp market.
Woodland is one of six mills in the northeast U.S. and Quebec recently pausing or decreasing wood deliveries.
Officials of Maine’s paper and pup industry remain bullish, despite the challenges they have faced in recent years.
“Our pulp and paper sector has been in flux for years,” Krysta West, executive director of the Maine Forest Products Council, recently wrote. “While we have lost some capacity from the peak, major investments have positioned our remaining mills as modern, efficient and nimble enterprises capable of adapting to evolving market trends.
“From pulp to toilet paper and packaging, our mills are sustainably producing products that we need as a society, and they are helping us move away from plastic and polystyrene foam that fill our landfills and pollute our waterways.”
Pulp and paper remain an $8 billion industry in Maine, the most-forested state in the country.
West said the claims by the D.C.-based Environmental Integrity Project criticizing mills for using forestry leftovers and other fuel they claim “can be dirtier than coal” are “not just an attack on our pulp and paper industry, it’s an attack on our heritage.”
