Libby officials weigh pros, cons of reviving closed mill-Portland, Ore., consulting firm brought in to discuss the town’s future.

One week after Libby’s Stimson Lumber mill closed its doors, former workers are lining up at the unemployment office, the local college is scrambling to make high-tech distance-learning upgrades, and community leaders are sitting down with a Portland, Ore., consulting firm to discuss the town’s future.

By MICHAEL JAMISON of the Missoulian

"What we’re asking for is a three-week study," said Lincoln County Commissioner John Konzen. "We want an unbiased opinion about what’s possible here."

Konzen meets with the Portland-based Beck Group on Wednesday to discuss a project that will assess whether the now-defunct Stimson plywood plant can be resurrected. At issue are marketing concerns, a building and equipment analysis, a labor study, a financial plan, and a look at timber supplies. In addition, the Beck Group will inspect the environmental status of the building, which is contaminated with potentially deadly asbestos.

The asbestos was used throughout the building, a legacy of Libby’s W.R. Grace and Co. vermiculite mine. The mine unearthed asbestos along with vermiculite, and the subsequent contamination has been blamed for hundreds of deaths.

"That mill has a lot of asbestos in it," Konzen said, "and we need to know more about the risks and liabilities."

In fact, prior to the meeting with the Beck Group, Libby leaders are set to sit down Wednesday morning with officials from the Environmental Protection Agency, which has maintained a presence in town since the asbestos problem was first made public.

The plan, according to Mayor Tony Berget, is to hammer out a deal under which a new mill owner – the employees or a private investor or the city itself – could reopen the plant but not assume any liability for pre-existing toxic conditions.

The scramble of meetings comes just one week after Stimson shut down the mill, citing a slumping global plywood market and increasing insurance costs associated with asbestos contamination.

As promised this fall, Stimson rang in the new year with the sound of the last shift whistle in Libby. But although the plant looks dead from the outside, the carcass is still warm, and some believe it could be resuscitated.

"The steam is on," Berget said. "Stimson has agreed not to turn off the heat."

According to Konzen, the company has enough sawdust fuel on hand to fire the boilers through March, and has promised to do so. Stimson also will delay dismantling the plant and its equipment until spring.

"That’s crucial," Konzen said. "If they don’t keep it heated, it will freeze and we’ll have a massive problem."

Libby’s latest massive problem – the loss of approximately 300 high-wage jobs in an economically depressed town of about 2,500 – has sparked a communitywide search for alternatives.

The "Healthy Community Task Force" – headed by the school superintendent, the hospital administrator, a mill union leader, the local economic development czar, the mayor and a county commissioner – already has asked the state for grant money to pay for the Beck Group’s feasibility study. In addition, they are seeking federal funds to help the city explore options for its future.

"We’ve looked over the numbers in a very preliminary way," Berget said, "and we think it’s possible we could get the mill open again. Possible, but really difficult."

Konzen said that cursory analysis indicated a 40 percent chance of success.

And so the options.

About a dozen subcommittees are working with the task force, Berget said, exploring possibilities such as biomass plants, a stud mill, a ski resort, an expanded golf course, manufacture of laminated wood beams, a small-diameter sawmill, a mobile home manufacturing plant. The list goes on.

"There’s nothing to say we can’t go down almost all of those paths to a degree," Berget said. "We have subcommittees working on just about every possibility you can imagine."

What he imagines, however, is a future not so unlike the past for Libby. If the mill can be reopened, he said, it likely will continue to make plywood, despite the weak market.

"That’s what the plant was built for," he said. "That’s the machinery and expertise we have. You stick with what you know."

But according to Konzen, "Stimson gave us until March. Then they’ll start hauling the equipment out if we haven’t developed a plan."

Whether the town can wait that long depends considerably on whether the former employees can wait that long. Already, Konzen said, former Stimson workers are lining up at the unemployment office, and are looking to take advantage of free retraining dollars at the local branch of Flathead Valley Community College.

Konzen and others are working fast to hook up high-speed Internet lines to the college so that at least some of that retraining can happen from home, fed by colleges and universities in places like Kalispell and Missoula.

"But a lot of the highly skilled labor is already gone," Konzen said. "The millwrights and supervisors and electricians, they’ve all left for new jobs in other places."

But the young guys are still sticking around, he said, hoping for some kind of employment training. Nearly 100 have signed up to learn heavy equipment operation, he said.

Workers, Berget said, got "not much in the way of severance, not much at all."

"No matter what, it’s going to be awhile before anything certain comes along," Berget said, "and so I’m telling people to get what education they can while it’s available."

Meanwhile, he and the task force continue to find a way to round up the estimated $10 million required to purchase and reopen the facility, assuming the feasibility study comes back with a positive recommendation at month’s end.

"It’s like going through a major life change," Berget said. "You finally have to just roll up your sleeves and get on with things, even while you keep hoping for the best."

Whatever the future of Libby, it won’t come overnight. Last fall, Berget and others hoped to have their ducks in a row to buy the mill before the Dec. 31 closure date. Now, they have negotiated to keep the lights on through March, "but no matter what, there’s nothing we can do in the immediate short-term," Berget said. "The soonest we could pull anything together is June, in reality."

Reporter Michael Jamison can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at [email protected].

If you’re interested

The scope of the feasibility study can be viewed at http://www.kootenet.com/healthy_communities.htm.

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