Equipment at Woodland Pulp in Maine roared back to life in mid-December after a 60 day pause in operations, and now one of the state’s largest mills is again accepting wood from New Brunswick producers. 

“On Monday, we restarted purchasing fibre for the mill,” company spokesperson Scott Beal said. 

“We’re back in the market. We are bringing in some fibre from suppliers in Canada, hardwood and chips.”

The general manager of the Carleton Victoria Forest Products Marketing Board says the news is welcome but not nearly enough to help embattled private woodlot owners in the province. 

“Everything is good news at this point, but it is not as good as it could be,” Kim Jensen said. “We’re not back where we were.”

With sales down by about two-thirds from last year, Jensen said some woodlot owners are deciding to pack it up, while others struggle on. 

“We have had some older ones who’ve left, they’ve just, they’ve had enough and they’ve left,” she said. 

“The people who have invested in the business, have bought processors and forwarders, they have to stay in business. And if you have $1,000,000 worth of equipment there, your payments are $40,000 to $60,000 a month and you have to work. You can’t just go somewhere else and get a job.”

Duty rates on New Brunswick wood were set at 35 per cent in September, when U.S. President Donald Trump announced an additional 10 per cent tariff on lumber imports.

The sudden increase was too much for Woodland Pulp to bear. The mill relied on New Brunswick wood for about a third of its supply prior to October.

“It certainly adds cost to the business and, you know, like other wood users, I mean we’re always looking and hoping and trying to source fibre at the least cost,” Beal told CBC News in October.

The Baileyville-based mill has rehired all of the 144 people laid off during its two month shut-down, and Beal said it will likely take some time to ramp up to accept the amount of wood it previously did. 

And with the difficult and uncertain tariff environment, Beal said, it’s hard to say how long the mill would be able to continue purchasing Canadian wood. 

“It’s a very challenging pulp market,” he said.

“The tariffs remain in place. That hasn’t changed. So it’s not reasonable to think that that won’t be a headwind for the business.”

The federal government did create a $1.25 billion fund to help the industry survive, but Jensen says that hasn’t meant support for individual private woodlot owners. 

In October, Jensen told CBC News that sales of timber by the marketing board’s members totalled about $1 million for all of 2024. They have fallen to about $200,000 over the past 12 months.

And the cost of cross-border business has continued to rise.

Before Woodland Pulp stopped taking Canadian timber, the company had a lumberyard in Florenceville ,where producers could drop off wood. Woodland would then take responsibility for shipping it the rest of the way to the mill. 

Now it’s up to individual producers to source transportation and to arrange a broker to help meet cross-border requirements. That’s adding between $60 and $100 per load of timber heading to the U.S.

“The markets are tightening up, and the prices are going down, and you can only go down so far before it’s just done,” Jensen said.

“A mill can stop and start up, maybe. But a private guy who loses his equipment, he’s lost everything. He’s not coming back.”

The Maine nonprofit Defend Our Health is taking on the role of watchdog to make sure companies and stores are not selling products that are now banned in Maine because they contain toxic “forever chemicals.”

As of Jan. 1, Maine joined Minnesota as the first states to ban thousands of everyday products containing toxic PFAS chemicals.

The new ban includes children’s toys, cosmetics, cookware, and cleaning products. It also includes reusable water bottles, upholstery, clothing, and feminine products.

The National Institute of Health says even trace amounts of PFAS have been linked to low birth weights, compromised immune systems, cancer, and other adverse health effects.

Defend Our Health says so far, most stores in Maine are complying with the law.

“We’ve seen a lot of the physical retailers complying with the ban. We have seen, for example, the PFAS-containing cookware being pulled from the shelves,” said Emily Carey Perez de Alejo, with Defend Our Health.

It is also not allowed in Maine to sell and ship banned products online to people in Maine like frying pans coated with PFAS.

Defend Our Health says a lot of online retailers have marked PFAS products not deliverable to Maine, while others have tried to comply, but missed a few products.

“From some retailers we have seen a wide array of PFAS-containing cookware still available for delivery to Maine,” Carey Perez de Alejo said. “So, we’ve reached out to the state to report some of these violators. We’re going to be reaching out to the companies. Hopefully, it’s just an oversight and they will be taking action to correct and come into compliance.”

The Maine Department of Environmental Protection says it will be reviewing the information received from Defend Our Health.

The Safer Chemicals Program manager says the Maine DEP will investigate to ensure no banned products are being sold in Maine, either in stores or online.

A new state report offers a series of recommendations to expand existing mobile home parks in Maine and build new ones, allow homeowners to obtain traditional mortgages at more favorable rates and overhaul the state’s oversight of parks.

The 30-page report, written by the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future and mandated by legislation passed last year, is intended to be a blueprint for future proposals as lawmakers seek to protect the roughly 45,000 Maine residents who live in mobile home parks.

It will be presented to the Housing and Economic Development Committee this month.

Mobile home parks in Maine and across the country — often considered the last form of unsubsidized affordable housing — are increasingly being purchased by out-of-state investors who raise the monthly lot rents, in some cases doubling or tripling prices, according to national data. 

Park residents, often low-income families or seniors on a fixed income, own their homes but not the land they sit on and residents are essentially helpless against rent increases.

“If they’re forced to lose their housing because the rents get too high, it’s hard to see where they’d be able to go,” said Greg Payne, senior housing adviser for the Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future.

The state is feverishly trying to build tens of thousands of housing units in the coming years, but Payne said in an interview it’s just as important to “protect the housing that we do have.”

“If we lose any of our affordable housing stock, that’s going to make our challenge even greater,” he said.

FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE FOR OWNERS, RESIDENTS

Many state officials would like to see more mom-and-pop or cooperatively owned manufactured housing communities, especially as the state tries to ramp up production.

But according to the report, the number of locally owned communities has been dwindling, and smaller owners and developers frequently struggle to increase available housing in their parks.   Boosting supply could also help lower costs for existing residents. 

As with all construction, it has gotten expensive. 

“There are plenty of owners who I think would be willing to expand if the math worked,” Payne said. “If we’re able to help with that, it creates more units that we desperately need across the state and creates the opportunity to spread existing costs across more households.”

The report recommends, among other things, making it easier for park owners to access MaineHousing construction loans, which state statute currently prohibits. 

The office also suggested developing a subsidy program that would give owners a forgivable loan if they agree to charge income-restricted lot rents to income-restricted households. 

‘TOO GOOD TO MISS’

The report also recommends allowing mobile home buyers to take out traditional mortgage loans.

Historically, loans for manufactured homes have been titled as personal property or “chattel” loans, similar to cars. These loans, according to the report, typically have shorter terms, higher interest rates, fewer lenders to choose from and inferior consumer protection. 

Over the years, construction technology and government regulations have evolved and factory-built houses are now often comparable to site-built housing, according to the report.

The price gap between the two is also narrowing, with many mobile homes selling for well over $200,000.

Payne said he spoke to an Old Orchard Beach resident whose interest rate is more than 11%, and is paying about $640 a month for a $60,000 loan, on top of her monthly lot rent. Comparatively, according to mortgage buyer Freddie Mac, the current interest rate on a 30-year mortgage is about 6.15%. That would save her hundreds of dollars a month.

“We don’t often have the opportunity to increase affordability and have nobody losing,” Payne said. “It’s an opportunity that could be too good to miss.”

‘SYSTEMIC LACK OF SUPPORT’

The report recommends an overhaul or “reimagining” of state regulation and oversight of mobile home communities to better serve residents. 

Currently, the Maine Manufactured Housing Board is in charge of licensing and inspecting parks, while landlord and tenant issues and consumer protection claims are enforced by the Office of the Maine Attorney General or the court system. 

But according to the report there is a “systemic lack of support” from state government in addressing some of the more common problems in parks — poor living conditions, untenable community rules and fees, disregard of state laws — and attempts to get help from either agency often result in referrals elsewhere. 

“This pattern of circular referrals, rarely leading to support, often leaves park residents feeling isolated and unheard,” the report says. 

The office recommends that the Legislature transfer the responsibility for certification, technical assistance and regulatory coordination from the Office of Professional and Occupational Regulation, where the board is currently housed, to the Maine Office of Community Affairs, which would also serve as a “first call” for residents seeking assistance.

Compliance with state rules would be handled by the attorney general’s office, which may need to find ways to provide more legal support to homeowners.

Finally, the report recommends directing more private resources toward supporting a housing attorney at Pine Tree Legal Assistance who has expertise in mobile home park issues.

LEGISLATIVE EFFORTS

Mobile home parks have been a hot-button issue in the last few Legislative sessions.

Lawmakers last year passed a series of bills designed to protect mobile homeowners, including one that gives park residents the “right of first refusal” if their community goes up for sale. 

In addition to the recommendations outlined in the recent report, the state is seeking to collect more data about the state’s parks.

Historically, the Maine Manufactured Housing Board has not tracked whether the parks are owned by resident co-ops, out-of-state corporations or Maine-based operators. It also collected no information about how many lots are in each park, vacancies or average lot rents.

That information is now required in order to license a park.

Another bill, which has resulted in confusion and some retaliatory rent increases, requires owners to provide 90 days written notice of a rent increase and establishes a process for residents to request mediation if the increase is more than the Consumer Price Index plus 1%. While owners are required by the new law to act in good faith, they are not prevented from moving forward with an increase.

Efforts to institute statewide rent control failed in the last session, in part due to Maine’s long history of local control, but many communities, including Brunswick, Saco and Sanford, have passed rent control measures or moratoriums on rent increases as they grapple with how to protect residents. 

The state report includes a model rent stabilization ordinance for municipalities but no mandate.