Tagged: Gorham Paper and Tissue

Switching to natural gas at the Gorham Paper and Tissue mill cost about $5.4 million but paid for itself in about four months, says Willis Blevins, the general manager of the plant.

Last year the company made the change from heating oil.

The goal was to reduce the enormous energy cost that Blevins says was always a problem when it came to making the plant consistently profitable.

The new owner, Patriarch Partners, was willing to make the investment the previous owner was not.

“The natural gas paid for itself, already. One hundred and nineteen days, ” Blevins told about 200 people attending the Androscoggin Valley Chamber of Commerce Annual Dinner Friday night in Gorham.

The Center for Public Integrity has a new report on pollution problems in New England including the Old Town Fuel & Fiber, which is owned by the same company as Gorham Paper and Tissue.

“The factory, Old Town Fuel & Fiber, a paper mill, has over the past five years racked up $267,000 in federal air pollution fines for releasing illegal amounts of carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and methanol into the air above its facility,” according to the report. (http://www.iwatchnews.org/2012/01/12/7851/states-slow-act-against-new-england-polluters).