The Forestry Forum

Tuesday evening (5/25) what appears to be a lightning strike caused a fire in the hardwood digester stack at the Wisconsin Rapids Verso mill. The stack collapsed, and caused subsequent fire damage to the #1 digester building. 60 fire fighters from multiple departments responded, and were able to have the fire under control by 9:45, keeping the damage limited to that area. The mill had been idled by Verso since June of 2020, causing a huge impact on the local timber industry. A group of loggers, truckers, and former mill employees had formed a cooperative (Timber Professionals Association) to purchase the mill, and have been in talks with Verso. Despite the fire (not known extent of the damage), the group still intends to buy the mill, and get it back up and running.

God bless em.

Without a digester? Best of luck to them.  Where would the pulp come from? 

I wouldnt be surprised if Verso would sell it like Stone Container did our mill with a non compete clause in the contract. With such limited markets for many paper products anymore I can't believe Verso would want any competition. 

Ainsworth was able to sell their 3 shuttered OSB mills in MN with non compete clauses. Two were purchased by well intentioned but starry eyed community organizations (the one local to me was supposed to be turned into a "green energy manufacturing campus") They're still sitting, 13 years on or so? They were built to be OSB mills, if Ainsworth didn't want competition I figured they should just be stuck with them.

I wonder how long the non compete clause is durable and if it would follow to a third owner.

The other day I was in an online meeting with some of the folks from the coop. They said they were still going to produce pulp. They wouldn't say exactly what the end product would be, only that it would be different than what Verso produced. This was prior to the fire.