Pull out stops to save jobs
Published 12:01 am Sunday, September 4, 2011
Much of the reaction to Kimberly-Clark Corp.’s announcement Thursday that it will close its Everett mill early next year if a buyer isn’t found seemed to imply a sense of resignation. People started talking about the city’s last pulp mill in the past tense; some began looking ahead at other possible uses for the industrial waterfront property.
Not so fast. The closure of a plant that supplies the area with 750 family-wage jobs would rip through the already wobbly local economy like a chainsaw through scrawny trees. The negative impact would reach far beyond K-C workers and their families — some of whom have had multiple generations make their living there.
The plant and the jobs it provides are sorely needed. Every reasonable effort should be made to find a buyer, close a deal and keep the plant cranking out consumer paper products.
This mill, which was built in 1931, is the last vestige of Everett’s rich history as “The City of Smokestacks.” It is not, however, your grandfather’s pulp mill.
Steam, not smoke, emanates from the plant’s stacks today. Since Kimberly-Clark took over operations after a merger with Scott Paper in 1985, the company has invested some $300 million in systems to treat wastewater, discharge effluent farther and deeper into the bay, and switch to chemical processes that are safer for the environment.
It’s unclear what would or could replace the plant if it closed. Yes, demolishing the huge, sprawling plant would open up views, raise some property values and create new investment possibilities. But cleaner operations over the past 25 years can’t erase possible contamination that occurred before that. Any entity, public or private, seeking to redevelop the property could be on the hook for untold millions in cleanup.
But the obvious and immediate economic consideration is jobs. Even with Boeing in hiring mode, unemployment clings stubbornly to the 10 percent mark in Snohomish County. Job growth nationally is essentially at zero. A second recession is possible, and even if it doesn’t materialize, economists say we’re likely to feel like we’re in one for months or even years to come.
The loss of the K-C jobs would be a tough blow to the region in any economy, but in this one, it could prove devastating.
If local or federal tax incentives could make a difference, they need to be considered. Union leaders and their members ought to think about reasonable concessions that might save their jobs.
Someday, the expanse of waterfront that houses Everett’s last remaining mill may find a new use. Today, however, is not that day.
