by Dave Williams | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – The impact of International Paper’s decision to close two pulp and paper mills in Coastal Georgia at the end of this month will spread far beyond those workers directly affected, state Commissioner of Agriculture Tyler Harper said Wednesday.
“This is more than 1,100 jobs,” Harper told members of the Georgia House Rural Development Committee meeting on the campus of South Georgia State College in Douglas. “This is tire shops, truck dealerships, mom-and-pop restaurants.”
But most affected by the impending shutdown of mills in Savannah and Riceboro will be Georgia’s timber industry, still reeling from the devastation of Hurricane Helene nearly a year ago and a longer-term drop in demand for wood due to foreign competition, increased use of recycled wood, and technological innovations that have led to lighter wood products.
“Four and a half million tons of Georgia-grown timber lost a home with these announcements,” said Devon Dartnell, forest utilization chief for the Georgia Forestry Commission. “That equates to about 70 logging crews in Georgia that don’t have a place to take wood. They probably won’t make payroll next month.”
International Paper announced the mill closures on Aug. 21, just weeks after Georgia-Pacific shut down its containerboard mill in the Southwest Georgia community of Cedar Springs. The closures are reducing the state’s supply of paper mills from 11 – down from a peak of 18 in 1977 – to eight.
Harper said state officials were caught off-guard by the news that International Paper, a giant factor in the coastal economy for decades, was pulling up stakes.
“As good as the state of Georgia has been to these companies, to close their doors in such a way … was a disservice to the industry, a disservice to the communities it impacts, and a disservice to those employees,” he said.
The rural development committee spent much of Wednesday’s daylong hearing talking about short- and long-term approaches economic development officials and industry leaders can take to mitigate the impacts of losing the mills.
The most immediate response is coming in Savannah and Riceboro. International Paper was sponsoring a jobs fair for laid off workers in the smaller Liberty County community on Wednesday, to be followed by a jobs fair in Savannah set for Thursday and Friday.
“This is a skilled workforce that is valuable,” said Bert Brantley, president and CEO of the Savannah Area Chamber of Commerce. “These folks will be in high demand.”
Along similar lines, the Georgia Association of Manufacturing is launching a website to help those out of work interact directly with employers via social media.
Stephanie Scearce, vice president of workforce innovation for the trade association, compared the platform to LinkedIn, but just for manufacturers.
“This is the missing piece bridging the gap between our manufacturers, education partners, and the general public,” she said.
Over a longer term, several speakers called for a more aggressive effort by the state and the timber industry to push converting wood into biomass. There’s a huge demand for wood pellets in Europe, which are burned to generate electricity there, while researchers are developing alternative fuels from biomass for use in aircraft and ships.
“We’ve got to deal with this stigma about biomass,” said Jason Shaw, chairman of the state Public Service Commission. “It’s not carbon-free … but it’s a whole lot cleaner than a lot of things that have powered this country.”
Georgia House Speaker Jon Burns cautioned committee members that any solutions they might come up with must be both economically and politically possible. But Burns, R-Newington, injected a note of optimism to the work ahead.
“The solutions we craft are about our future,” he said. “We can make an impact on this industry.”
