Almost a dozen years have passed since Bucksport’s former paper mill was purchased by a Canadian scrap metal company. It’s been close to a decade since the buildings were demolished and the main site sold off.
But two of the mill’s less visible legacies have remained active concerns over the last several years for the town and for Bucksport Mill LLC, the subsidiary of American Iron & Metal that bought the mill: the mill’s former PFAS-leaching landfill, which the state has ordered the company to close, and the three dams which the state considers hazardous and AIM wants to abandon.
The relationship between Bucksport and AIM has long been fraught. Town officials and legal representatives have described the company variously in recent years as inactive, neglectful, causing serious harm, acting in bad faith and being “downright hostile.”
Complex negotiations recently stalled that would have allowed the town to take ownership of one of the dams that once supported papermaking, which also holds back Bucksport’s municipal water supply at Silver Lake. If state regulators approve its abandonment and residents vote in favor of acquiring it, the town would take ownership of the Silver Lake dam.
Bucksport has spent close to $240,000 on the two issues since 2024, almost all on the dam, according to Town Manager Jacob Gran. He has characterized these legal expenses as holding the company accountable.
Unless AIM gave up on petitioning the state to abandon the dams, “I don’t see a cheaper option,” he said Thursday.
The numbers shed new light on the literal cost of the town’s difficulties with the company, and highlight lingering downstream challenges Bucksport has faced from the mill closure.
It also comes at a time when councilors have begun a multi-year effort to significantly cut expenses. The town has so far absorbed legal expenses in its operating budget, according to Gran; Bucksport’s line for legal costs increased to $60,000 in its latest budget, up from $25,000 the previous year and $15,000 before that.
An AIM official didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The company bought the former Verso mill for $58 million shortly after its abrupt closure in late 2014, along with its holdings that included an adjacent power plant that the company has since sold. Less valuable holdings remain: the 109-acre landfill and three dams.
Because of restrictions on its state license, the landfill could only accept certain kinds of waste generated on the mill site by its owner. The state found AIM wasn’t meeting environmental requirements in 2023 and ordered the company to permanently close 26 acres that had been dormant but remained open.
Before and after that order, the company had pitched numerous methods of reopening or offloading the landfill, including a covert sale attempt in 2024, drawing increasing ire from town officials as the state-imposed closure deadline of Dec. 31 approached without work beginning.
Closure work started last month, leaving the company less than four months to complete the project on time.
Two summers ago, AIM also petitioned the state under an as-yet-untested law to allow it to abandon Toddy and Alamoosook dams in Orland and the Silver Lake dam.
Last year, residents in Orland and neighboring towns voted to form quasi-municipal watershed management districts that could take ownership of the other two dams if the petition was approved. The long-dammed water bodies have become part of the landscape, and without them water levels could drop and the watershed may change, leaving lakefront property owners high and dry.
Gran said transfer negotiations are made even more complicated by the mill site owner’s contractual obligations to provide water to the Maine Water Company’s drinking water plant and to Bucksport Generation, the mill’s former power plant. That plant also provides backup electricity for the New England power grid through a federal agreement.
“Any viable solution has to carefully navigate and protect all of these critical infrastructure needs,” he said.
Last month, talks met a “significant setback” when AIM unexpectedly — and late in the process — withdrew a proposed financial arrangement for transferring ownership of the dam to the town, according to Gran. That meant the town couldn’t put an acquisition question to a resident vote this November.
That will now take at least another year, so the town is asking the DEP to dismiss the company’s current abandonment petition in order to provide time to restart discussions “and negotiate a fair deal once Bucksport Mill is prepared to re-engage,” Gran said.
Councilors voted last week to authorize him to enter into several agreements related to acquiring the dam if voters give the go-ahead.
A report from the company is due to the state by early November for a decision to be made on its abandonment request. That deadline has previously been extended.
Bucksport’s attorney, David Littell, said the vote made it clear that the parties who would be left with the dam if the abandonment happens – the town, Bucksport Generation and Maine Water – are in agreement on terms.
A verbal agreement was also reached for Bucksport Mill to provide funds for operation and maintenance for future years, but the company hasn’t committed in writing, according to Littell.
“There are parties that are, for lack of a better word, playing ball here, and perhaps others that aren’t,” Mayor Paul Bissonnette added. “And so by taking this action, it basically is saying, we’re playing ball … and there are other parties that perhaps aren’t at that point right now.”
