Bill Proposed Would Assist In Opening Paper Mills

A bill that would help fund a restart of a pair of paper mills in Central Wisconsin got a hearing on Tuesday at the state assembly forestry committee. Bill Author Scott Krug says that the forever Verso paper mill in Wisconsin Rapids has some limited usage right now, but isn’t operating at full capacity.

“Now I know that Verso is still operating small portion of the middle of the mill, the converting side of it. They’ve got paper that’s been and warehouses forever that they’re finally sheeting and selling and still. I know on the backside of the mill we’ve got Sunoco, another paper company, that’s creating brown paper products. Paper cores, things like that.”

The bill would offer around 16 million dollars in total to reopen the Wisconsin Rapids mill as well as a mill in Park Falls. A previous attempt on this bill was vetoed this year by Governor Evers after it tried to use federal stimulus funding for the project.