FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) - A former paper plant near Flagstaff will be converted into a new sawmill facility, bolstering forest restoration efforts in northern Arizona, company officials said.
Good Earth Power AZ and its operating entity NewLife Forest Products, LLC announced it will use a 425,000-square-foot (39,500-square-meter) facility in Bellemont to house a new sawmill that would employ up to 200 people, the Arizona Daily Sun reported.
The building was previously occupied by Sweden-based company Essity AB, formerly Svenska Cellulosa AB, but the company closed its doors in 2019.
The new facility is scheduled to open in March and will house the sawmill, planer mill, kilns and engineered wood product lines, with space for storage and movement of high-value products, company officials said.
“This is the most exciting and important project I have been involved with in my 40-year career in the forest products industry,” NewLife Forest Products CEO Ted Dergousoff said. “The Bellemont sawmill will play a key role for keeping Coconino County protected from a catastrophic wildfire event.”
Ecological Restoration Institute Executive Director Andrew Meador told the Arizona Daily Sun last week that healthier forests, where trees are more spread out from one another, are better able to survive droughts and reduce the risk of wildfires.
Good Earth Power currently contracts with the U.S. Forest Service for logging operations associated with the Four Forest Restoration Initiative. The project is intended to restore 3750 square miles (9,700 square kilometers) on the Apache-Sitgreaves, Coconino, Kaibab and Tonto National Forests to a healthier state.
Despite currently holding the contract, Good Earth Power has struggled to reduce and treat forests, completing only a fraction of the 30,000 acres each year. But the new mill is expected to change that by providing the company the ability to process smaller logs and ramp up forest thinning and harvesting.
Coconino County forest restoration director Jay Smith said the opening of the mill would be a “game changer” and should accommodate local restoration efforts by providing a destination for the timber and a way for involved companies to make a profit.
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