Hide Article Text (OCR)
By BOB CUMMINGS Press Herald writer WINSLOW — “Late equipment deliveries, strikes and adverse weather” delayed the construction of the new Scott Paper Co. pulp mill at Skowhegan, Scott Megional Vice President Arthur J. Haug told the board of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection Thursday. Haug said these were conditions over which his company had no control in pleading for an exten sion of Maine's Oct. 1 deadline for meeting water clean up Laws. He said the Skowhegan plant won't begin operating until around the first of the year, so the heavily-polluting, existing mill at Winslow will have to remain open Scott three years ago chose to meet the cleanup requirements imposed by the Maine Legislature in 1967 by abandoning its pulp mill at Winslow and constructing a modern facility at Skowhegan. The U.S. Environmental Protec tion Agency has called the existing mill ‘the “largest source of in dustrial pollution in New England.” Questions by DEP director of in dustrial pollution control E. Stephen Groves, suggested that Scott waited too long to make its decision to build a new plant. “Why” he demanded, “did the Scott board wait until the day before the law required construc tio of treatment system to begin?”’ Haug blamed the economic 1 € C64810u of 1971 and 1972. “If we had been forced to decide earlier, the decision would have been ‘not to build in Maine,” he said. “The alternatives had to be considered in the context of the company’s overall needs for capital to maintain and serve its projected business requirements, and a rapidly changing inter national economic picture in which inflation was playing an i creasing role.” But Haug said even the delayed decision should have provided enough time to complete the Proposed new plant. He said Scott had built a somewhat smaller pulp mill in Nova Scotia 10 years ago in 3 months. But he conceded the Canadian facility cost only $60 million, rather than the $200 million the Maine project contemplates, and doesn't contain the sophisticated environmental protection devices the law now imposes. Haug said the company needs until Apri 1 to continue using the Winslow plant. He said it would take three months from Jan. 1 to shake out the bags and bring production to a level that would supply the company's need. The pulp mill at Winslow would be closed at that time, though a papermaking mill would continue to be operated there, using pulp manufactured at Skowhegan. Under questioning from Groves, Haug said it took eight months of additional time to get the Cana dian plant working at a reasonable level of production. The DEP board is expected to grant the time extension at a board meeting Sept. 22.
Newspaper Details
Kennebec Journal
Augusta, Maine, US
Fri, Sep 03, 1976
Page 2
Full Page
Clipped by
Anonymous
USA 15 Jun 2026
Other Publications Near Augusta, Maine
Daily Kennebec Journal
Kennebec Journal
