Recovery is possible: Queens mayor
The mayor of Queens Regional Municipality said it's possible for things to get better after a closure like the Northern Pulp Mill.
“The Northern Pulp closure will have an impact all through Nova Scotia,” David Dagley said. But he said his message is that things can get better.
“I think perhaps it's not as bleak as some would have us believe, but that is all going to depend on how the actual forest management occurs in the short term,” he said.
“There is an opportunity to focus on those products from woodlands that will have a quick market and do have a present market, and to perhaps reduce the harvest on those that don't until there is the ability to adjust what those markets and uses for forest fibre would be.”
The Bowater Mersey mill in
Liverpool closed in 2012, throwing more than 300 employees at the mill out of work. Dagley said that since Bowater closed, some new markets for forest products have opened, and some businesses have seen expansions.
While many Bowater workers were close to retirement age and others found work in Alberta or the offshore, some opened new businesses as the area worked to recover economically.
“We have rebounded fairly well over the last seven years,” Dagley said. “There's always more ability to grow, and there's a need to grow.”
He said it's always important to look at new industries and developers in the wake of closures like Bowater and Northern Pulp.
In Liverpool, the mill was taken over by Innova-Corp, a Crown economic development. Among the businesses that have moved onto the site are Aqualitas, which spent $15 million renovating a 40,000-square-foot warehouse for a cannabis production facility.
“Aqualitas is a very good success story, Dagley said. “They're advising me they're up over 80 employees now in the past few years, so that's good growth. They're good paying jobs and inside jobs for the most part.”
He said tourism-related businesses have grown and added employees to increase the industry and expand the season in the area.
There are still jobs in the forestry industry with Bowater gone, Dagley said. Freeman Lumber in Greenfield employs 150 people directly and produces 100-million board feet of lumber and lumber products annually, while also providing work for local harvesters and truckers.
He said Northern Pulp was a strong market for waste wood chips from the mill, and now there is potential for Brooklyn Energy – the former power mill for Bowater that is now owned by Emera -- to expand its biomass operation beyond the usual six months per year by using those chips.
“Of course, there is always the opportunity for a wood pellet factory to open up and take some of the good quality chips,” Dagley said.
He said he would like to think that with 400,000 hectares of Crown land in western Nova Scotia and forestry workers supplying local sawmills, that there are more markets to be found if opportunities are followed up on.
“Our hearts go out to the people impacted in this industry,” he said. “It's going to be a struggle for some for a short period of time or maybe longer.”