WHITE PIGEON, MI — The former home of the White Pigeon Paper Company — now owned and operated by Graphic Packaging International — will close by the end of June.
“While the exact closure date will depend upon multiple business plan factors, the expected date of closure is June 30,” the company’s general manager John Richter wrote in an April 28 letter filed with the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity.
The WARN (Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification) notice, received by the state May 4, states that approximately 100 employees will be impacted by the closure. Separations of employment are expected to begin June 17.
The White Pigeon facility, located at 15781 River St., was acquired by Graphic Packaging in 2019.
The site was recently added to the state’s list of PFAS contamination sites on April 2, but company spokeswoman Sue Appleyard said the timing of that and the impending closure of the mill was completely coincidental.
According to the state, the groundwater from 16 of the monitoring wells tested at the White Pigeon site in 2019 were found to contain PFAS at concentrations exceeding the groundwater criteria.
PFAS are a family of thousands of synthetic chemicals used in many nonstick and waterproof products and firefighting foam. Exposure to the chemicals has been linked to health problems like cancer and autoimmune disease. They have been nicknamed “forever chemicals” because the compounds resist breaking down in the environment.
The results of the 2019 PFAS testing came approximately three weeks prior to Graphic Packaging’s quarterly earnings meeting on April 21 when the decision to close was announced, Appleyard confirmed.
Appleyard said the company had already made the decision to close the mill prior to the meeting and prior to the discovery of the test results. She also said the company would do whatever is needed to ensure the site is cleaned up.
“We’re a very responsible company so we are going to do whatever we need to do to make things right," she said.
Graphic Packaging has no plans to sell the facility and land at this time, and has not made any decisions in regard to future plans pertaining to the property, Appleyard said.
She said the White Pigeon mill, although only recently acquired, simply did not fit into the company’s overall portfolio.
“When you acquire something you can only do so much due diligence," Appleyard said. “Once we integrated the mill into our company and realized what the associated costs really were and the production capability itself, being a small mill, it didn’t end up being a great fit in our overall portfolio."
The company — which specializes in producing coated, recycled cardboard such as is used for packaging tissue boxes and cereal boxes — is headquartered just north of Atlanta, Georgia, and has 70-plus facilities worldwide.
Appleyard said the company is doing what it can to retain as many employees from the White Pigeon mill as it can and help to place them at one of the company’s other sites.
Graphic Packaging has nearby facilities in Kalamazoo, Battle Creek and Chicago as well as in Auburn, Indiana, and Middleton, Ohio, that may have positions available for workers leaving White Pigeon, she said.
As a result of the closure in White Pigeon, productivity will likely increase at other nearby facilities, Appleyard said.
“Some of the volume White Pigeon was doing will be redistributed to existing mills, whether it’s going to be Kalamazoo, Battle Creek or Middleton,” she said.
Both Battle Creek and Middleton had been previously rumored to be in the process of being phased out once the company finishes expansion of its Kalamazoo facility at 1500 N. Pitcher St.
Graphic Packaging is in the midst of a project, in which it is using $21 million in Kalamazoo Brownfield Redevelopment and Michigan Strategic Fund dollars to develop 11 plots of recently-acquired land spread over 123 acres adjacent to its Kalamazoo site.
Among the 11 plots purchased over the course of the last decade by the company are the former Checker Motors (1923-2009) and Clark Logic properties.
Plans for those lots include a new state-of-the-art facility that will have the ability to produce 500,000 tons of recycled cardboard annually, the company has said.
While the White Pigeon closure may give the Battle Creek and Middleton mills a boost in productivity, along with some short-term security, it doesn’t change the company’s overall vision, Appleyard said.
“Once the new machine in Kalamazoo is up and running we’ll have to again reassess overall capacity,” Appleyard said. “The intention still is to keep the most profitable mills running at that time."
Appleyard told MLive in September there were no definite plans to shutter either of the other facilities and that any such decisions would depend on market conditions when construction in Kalamazoo is complete.
The Kalamazoo expansion, which has resulted in 1,000 construction jobs according to the company, is on target and expected to be done in early 2022, Appleyard said.
Once the project is complete, the manufacturer plans to add between 25 and 50 full-time positions to its existing local workforce.
Also on MLive:
PFAS contamination found at Graphic Packaging facility in White Pigeo
Manufacturers return to work as the industry adjusts to new normals
Tax breaks worth $21M approved for major Graphic Packaging expansion in Kalamazoo
St. Joseph County prosecutor arrested after alleged drunken-driving crash
"close" - Google News
May 13, 2020 at 04:59AM
https://ift.tt/2WRFfKd
Graphic Packaging International to permanently close White Pigeon mill - mlive.com
"close" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2QTYm3D
https://ift.tt/3d2SYUY
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Graphic Packaging International to permanently close White Pigeon mill - mlive.com"
Post a Comment