The town of Bucksport is taking steps to attract a new biofuel plant, starting with seeking a grant to assess how well it and the surrounding region could support such a facility.
If the grant is approved, Bucksport would use the funds to pay a firm called Ecostrat to provide it with what’s known as a Biofuels Development Opportunity Zone rating. The company has developed a risk rating system for “bioeconomy” projects, which it would apply to the town and the wider area within a 75-mile radius, spanning from midcoast to Down East.
The process would evaluate how much potential remains from the papermaking industry that operated out of the town for decades to support a new business making use of wood byproducts.
For Bucksport, it’s another piece in an ongoing strategy to diversify the local economy after the closure of the town’s paper mill a decade ago.
The town is applying for a $100,000 federal grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Rural Development program to pay for the study, after it was approached by Ecostrat. It would not have to contribute local matching funds to pay for the study, according to Rich Rotella, Bucksport’s community and economic development director. The company says it helped 15 municipalities get those grants in 2024.
Biofuels are processed from organic materials, or biomass, such as wood byproducts from the paper or timber industry. Plants using biomass for different products have been proposed around the state as a way to support that industry, with some mixed success.
“What we’ve seen in the industry with the woody biomass is … ‘What do we do with this leftover and how do we create it into fuel?’” Rotella said. “I knew that there was still a need and demand.”
Biomass opportunities have been on the table for years as the town works to diversify its economy, be more resilient and not rely on a single large employer. That approach has been credited with helping Bucksport stay vibrant after the 2014 mill closure, which took many jobs and about 40 percent of the local tax base with it.
Even though the mill is gone, log trucks still come through town, arborists work locally and there are other regional sources of “woody leftovers” from the state’s industries that Rotella said could be put to use. The town received letters of support for its application from a local lumber company, the state’s lumber association, the developer of a biofuel refinery on a former mill site in Lincoln, the city of Old Town and two businesses he declined to name that are looking for sites in Maine.
If the town receives the grant, the rating process should identify how much of that biomass material there is, how much infrastructure remains to handle it and what the local demand looks like.
Some biomass electricity operations have faltered in Maine. The industry got a $13 million bailout in 2016, but one plant owner ran them only intermittently and filed for bankruptcy in 2022. Two biomass electricity plants in Aroostook County shut down in 2018 and 2019, citing market conditions.
But new plant proposals focusing on biofuels have come to other towns recently, including Lincoln, Limestone, Millinocket and East Millinocket. Maine’s state government supports such “green” energy options and federal programs can provide funding for them.
Rotella said the depth of the rating process should help any new developer understand if a plant could be successful. If Bucksport isn’t the place for it, the process might give an opportunity to another town in the radius, which stretches from Brunswick to Greenville to Machias.
Either way, he expects indirect and direct economic benefits, he told the Town Council during a meeting last week, at which it approved seeking the grant.
Bucksport has found at least two suitable biofuel locations: a site near the former mill known as Sprague North and the town’s Buckstown Heritage industrial park.
It’s also preparing for the possibility of a third open industrial site. The Whole Oceans land-based salmon farm proposed for the former mill site seven years ago still hasn’t gotten off the ground, and the project’s local permits expired last year.
The town expects an update on the developer’s plans this year, Rotella said, and the rating could help officials be prepared if Whole Oceans decides to scale down the project or sell its 120-acre parcel. It was originally expected to create 40 jobs and pay up to $1 million in local taxes each year.
The rating application met with unanimous approval from the Town Council, but one member of the public raised concerns about such plants burning municipal solid waste.
In an interview after the meeting, Rotella said the town is just pursuing the rating at this point, not bringing in businesses. If it does, Bucksport wants something that operates cleanly and doesn’t bring pollution to town like its former industries did.