Winchester NH Paper Mill lays off help

April 4, 2013:
The Death Of American Tissue Corporation Oct 6, 2012

Article Published: Saturday, February 26, 2005 - 7:08:25 AM EST

Paper mill lays off help

I was the guy who raised the issue of the defective lagoon back in the 2001 timeframe –it led to the shutdown of the Winchester mill and the bankruptcy of American Tissue in a 300 million dollar CEO scam. Actually, I knew the defective lagoon was just a huge symptom of a regulatory and political dysfunction going across both political parties.

About three months ago 2004/2005- I got fed up again seeing milky white lagoon waste being discharged from their diffuser pipe in Wincheste. I walked into the site and made a complaint, talked to the Keene Sentinel –made a complaint to the NHDES –and then called the Monadnock Economic Development Corp. I left a recorded message on President Jack Dugan message machine –basically saying that with all of your money that you loaned them –that they are going to blow their repayment to you if they are caught polluting again like they did in 2000.

I told him I got insider information, that in response to the pollution case in 2000, they were forced to bring in an outside sampling company to sample the plant discharges –but the facility figured out that the outside company sampled every morning at a specific time -7AM or 8AM –thus for the sample time they could clean up the sample discharge line –then once the outside company left, they could discharge at illegal rates. This was want I’d seen many times recently– a 50 foot plume of waste going down the river. You should asked Mr. Dugan if he heard my message.

I am still confused with grants and loans –grants needing no repayments and these other loan repayments. We were always worried about the restartup of this facility. It is my understanding that the new owner were related to the past owner. We were always worried about it being another fraud being over layered on top of another. In other words, they started up that facility knowing the future life was limited by the old plant equipment and poor business environment of the paper industry –but they wanted to get the public loans, then fraudulently bleed those monies into their personnel accounts. I would now be worried that some of these quasi public bureaucracies being involve in, and having individuals involved in illegal kickbacks.

I remember being called to the Winchester site just before the 2002 startup -telling me to look at what is parked next to the old, old building. There was this brand new black “mile long limo” parked right outside the main office –the plant was not in operation yet. I did send a e-mail to the Keene Sentinel about the limo.

You got the contrast with the empty facility being build before the 1920’s; with employees being out of work for over a year; with the financing being done by the public monies without transparency -and a brand new limo sitting outside supposedly transporting the new owners. What a waste of resources –and it implied the troubles of the employees were just beginning.



Paper mill lays off help

By ANDREW RAGOUZEOS Reformer Staff

WINCHESTER, N.H. -- One of the town's largest employers, Atlantic paper mill, shut down its operation Friday, laying off its entire staff, workers say.

"I've been told by a good source that the factory closed temporarily to improve its equipment, and they plan to re-open ... in a matter of months," Selectwoman Susan Newell said Friday.
"I can't have an opinion until we learn more about what's going on."

Asked if the company had closed, a man answering the phone at Atlantic's Winchester plant on Friday said, "Actually, I can't say anything at this point."

Calls placed to plant supervisor Dean Nutter revealed that his telephone had been disconnected.
"The supervisors called us all in at 8 a.m. to tell us we were all being let go, the whole place, about 60 workers," an employee, who declined to give his name, said. "They're not doing this to screw everybody. It's to better the mill, really -- so they can stop losing money, improve the machines and find more regular customers and re-open."

Atlantic Paper & Foil Corp. purchased the Lost Road mill property in 2002 after the town of Winchester and the Monadnock Economic Development Corp. secured a $700,000 Community Development Block grant to help subsidize the company's move to Winchester.

Once the plant was up and running by March 2003, the town's unemployment rate dropped from 5.2 percent to 4 percent, according to the New Hampshire Rural Development Council.
Monadnock Economic Development Corp. President Jack Dugan said Friday evening that he had not been notified of the closing. "As far as I know [Atlantic has] been making their loan payments," Dugan said. "They obviously know how to get in touch with us. But we haven't been notified about this."

Atlantic Paper & Foil's headquarters is in Hauppauge, N.Y.

Andrew Ragouzeos can be reached at aragouzeos@reform-er.com.