THREE YEARS LATER: Status of Old Mill Site

Environmental Risks and what's in the future for 27 acres of land.

Earlier this month, a third party consulting firm received an award for the development plan the city paid them to produce two years ago.

This plan, with many fancy graphs and historical photos, was to establish possibilities of what could be built at the old paper mill site in Sturgeon Falls. For some reason, several local politicians attempted to rejoice and draw positive attention from the success of these consulting firms. But one commenter on social media accurately pointed out to councillors:

“Let's wait for the implementation before planning the celebrations.”

The city acquired the 27-acre old mill site from Weyerhaeuser in 2020 for $100,000.

Weyerhaeuser closed their corrugated paper mill in December 2002. For years the city tried to get Weyerhaeuser to do something with the abandoned land or sell it. But in 2020, the West Nipissing CAO told council that it appeared the company had changed its position and was willing to sell the property to the municipality.

Three Years Later

It’s been over three years since the city acquired the land. So, last week at the council meeting, staff provided an update.

They informed council that the Phase One Environmental Assessment was in the process of being finalized. And that they would then be requesting bids for a Phase Two Environmental Assessment.

Phase Two Environmental Assessments are typically required for old industrial sites and are more in depth. The Phase Two Assessment will also be the first time actual soil samples are collected and analyzed. Staff told council that this phase will not be completed until February 2025, nearly three years after the Land Use Development Plan was published and over four years after acquiring the site. Leaving many to question if the 2022 study will still be relevant or if the city will have to hire more consultants.

Environmental Risks

Likely the biggest challenge facing the prospects of this project is the environmental risk. Councillor Anne Tessier brought this up at council last week. She asked if there had ever been any soil samples or testing done at this site prior to purchasing it.

CAO Jay Barbeau answered:

“The quick answer is no… There wasn’t a soil sample.”

He went on to share that Weyerhaeuser had only ever conducted a Phase One Assessment (simply a paper study which analyzes historical information of the land use but does not actually test the soil).

Barbeau then gave us some insight on the likely reason why it took 18 years to acquire this property. He told council that for the last 15 years, Weyerhaeuser was not willing to release environmental information prior to a sale. They also appeared reluctant to conduct a Phase Two Assessment themselves. Barbeau noted that the city decided to do it’s own Phase One Environmental Assessment working with individuals that had historical knowledge of the site.

$100,000 for 27 acres of downtown waterfront property

“There is no such thing as a free lunch”.

I’ve spoken to many people on the subject of this acquisition and some have used the familiar saying “there is no such thing as a free lunch”.

Weyerhaeuser has no attachment to this community anymore. It is a publicly traded corporation valued at $32 billion. They are only accountable to their shareholders and the communities they now operate in.

So why did they sell a prime 27-acre piece of land for $100,000?

“As Is” Sale

It appears that for years Weyerhaeuser only wanted to sell the property “as is” and did not even want to disclose any environmental information they had on the property. They also didn’t want to conduct a Phase Two Environmental Assessment and attempt to develop the land themselves. We can only assume, this is because they were afraid of what might be found.

That is likely why they left the property abandoned for nearly twenty years. Until the city was willing to accept it “as is”.

Weyerhaeuser’s annual financial statements show that the company is very worried about their long-term liabilities with respect to old operational sites. In their 2021 report to shareholders they stated that the cost to remediate all the properties they are responsible for could be as high as $126 million.

That likely explains why senior executives were happy to offload the potential liability sitting in Sturgeon Falls and sell this 27-acre waterfront property for litteral pennies on the dollar.

Prince Rupert, BC

There are many cases of old paper mill sites becoming nightmares for eventual land owners. But one particular example in British Columbia is worth looking at.

The City of Prince Rupert, BC didn’t go out looking to buy an old paper mill site. Instead, they unfortunately inherited a former 50 acre plot of land after their town mill failed. 

Although they won an eventual award for their work, Prince Rupert did not want to acquire this property. City officials told the media in 2022 that they were “the unwilling recipient of the Watson Island property and inherited it through a tax sale after the pulp mill closed”. 

The city fought in court but ended up having to bear responsibility for most of the rehabilitation costs of the old site which cost several millions. This scenario could very well be what awaits West Nipissing in the years to come. But at least we might win another award in the process…

Disposition

At the council meeting last week, Councillor Fern Pellerin brought up a very important question that should be discussed further. He asked if council in the past had ever considered selling this plot of land to a private developer. In the process developing this land would not cost taxpayers anything, it would offload risks and likely speed up the process.

During the 2022 elections, that was a key idea proposed by mayoral candidate Dave Lewington. Lewington had proposed a scenario whereas the city divide the land into smaller parcels. Selling them to multiple developers to generate income for the city and speeding up the development.

Last week, the CAO and Mayor Thorne-Rochon quickly turned down the idea of selling the land.

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