Wisconsin Rapids Paper Mill Purchased, But No Movement on Re-Opening Yet

Tuesday, April 19th, 2022 -- 10:00 AM

Now that Verso has officially been bought out by a Scandinavian papermaker- Wisconsin Rapids Mayor Shane Blaser says he's hopeful that there will be renewed interest in restarting the idled mill in his city:

“We’re hoping that maybe there will be some added interest there because of converting of the other mills over to brown paper, they have that coated paper, so they might have some more interest versus before.”

But he says so far there's been no discussions with BillerudKorsnas so far: “Their priority right now, I don't know for sure, but their operating mills are probably making sure those things are being tended to first of all.”

He says the city's first priority remains finding a way to keep the facility operating as a paper mill, which is best for everyone in Rapids and beyond: “It’s set up to be a paper mill. And for 100 some years it’s been a paper mill. If we could find a paper mill use for it, that, by far, would be the best. To get that mill running it’s going to help out a lot of companies in the state like the loggers and a lot of them”

The Verso mill in Wisconsin Rapids has been idled for nearly two years now, with only minimum maintenance being performed on the equipment in case plans to restart the facility do materialize.

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