When the first paper mill in Lincoln was built in 1882, its creators likely didn’t think about the day it would close, or what would happen to the land in its place.
Flash forward to 2015, and a boiler explosion forced the mill — then owned by Lincoln Paper and Tissue and employing more than 100 people — to file for bankruptcy, leaving the mill site vacant and in need of a $60 million chemical cleanup.
The town acquired the mill, dam and nearly 400 surrounding acres in the years following the closure, and razed many buildings to develop the area into the Lincoln Technology Park. In 2023, the first business signed a lease to open in the park.
Now, Lincoln is looking ahead to 2027, when the largest battery system in the world is slated to be built on the former mill site. But the town isn’t settling for another scenario where the largest employer and economic mover in town can shut down and abandon the town.
Instead, town leaders decided they needed to plan for another closure and possible cleanup, Ruth Birtz, Lincoln’s economic development administrator, said.
Lincoln is asking companies coming to the mill site to create a fund to pay for expenses from future closures and prepare for the same worst-case scenario that happened when the mill shut down in 2015. The town would control the fund to cover rehabilitation efforts if the businesses were to close. Town leaders are also planning training centers and housing developments that would be able to sustain an influx of workers when the businesses open.
In short, Lincoln is doing what it failed to do in the past: plan for the worst. By controlling the fund and the land the businesses are moving into, the town has more authority if there is another major closure, and can avoid going to court or being slapped with a pricey bill for environmental cleanup.
“With what happened and how we were left with that price tag to clean it up, the development going into that mill will be required to have a cleanup plan afterwards so this never falls on the town of Lincoln again,” Birtz said.
A fund like this wasn’t thought of before because the mill’s longevity wasn’t questioned, Lincoln Town Manager Rick Bronson said.
“We didn’t make any provision for what would happen” if the mill did go away, Bronson said, noting that such plans preceded his time in office.
Without plans for what to do when the mill would close, the town was forced to go to bankruptcy court to acquire the mill site. When it did, Lincoln also assumed responsibility for the $60 million chemical cleanup required by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, Birtz said.
Instead of paying the $60 million to the EPA, which would have designated the area as a Superfund site and prevented development for more than 30 years, Lincoln secured a Brownfield designation and is slowly cleaning the area, Birtz said.
Lincoln’s first development in the industrial park is a biorefinery that is set to start construction this year. Biofine Developments Northeast signed a 20-year lease with the town to construct a refinery on the former mill site.
The company is set to bring in nearly 200 jobs when it opens.
The 20-year lease the company signed is another way the town is looking to control its own future. A lease allows the town to continue to own the mill site while businesses can still develop it, meaning Lincoln would not have to go to court to own the land if a company were to go bankrupt and leave, Bronson said.
Companies coming in with federal funding are easier to hold accountable after they close because their contracts have more stipulations, Bronson said.
One company, Form Energy, secured a $147 million grant through the Department of Energy meant to turn the former mill site into the world’s largest battery system. The grant is in the final stages of being awarded, a spokesperson from the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs said.
The project is expected to break ground in 2027 and create around 100 jobs during construction with a “handful” of full-time and maintenance jobs staying at the mill afterward, the company said.
Private companies funding their own project are harder, Bronson said, because they could buy the land, start a development and then leave all within a year because they don’t see it as profitable.
But it’s not just the mill company that leaves the area — workers do, too.
Those people are also on the town’s mind when it talks to companies about new developments. Lincoln has stressed to these new businesses that they’ll have to attract new workers because former mill workers haven’t stayed in town waiting for another job.
But Lincoln has a plan for that, too.
The town announced last week that it is seeking qualifications from housing developers to partner with Lincoln to construct 50 to 120 units of workforce-oriented housing.
The housing, along with a training center that will be built in the park, are part of revitalization efforts that are trying to respond to needs in the area, Birtz said.
The idea came from a housing study through the Eastern Maine Development Corporation that showed a shortage of affordable housing for workers looking to start families.
“We took the initiative to look at developing it and marketing it so that it is there if they need it,” Birtz said.
The housing development, training center and a fund for a possibly required cleanup are not surprising to Birtz, who said the town has been forward thinking for decades.
“Lincoln has always had their eyes on what they would do if [a closure] would happen. The town council has been very, very proactive in future planning,” she said.
