It’s taken more than eight years since the closure of the Resolute Forest Products paper mill in Iroquois Falls until Friday’s ribbon cutting on the property being used as a multi-modal logistics centre.
Justus Veldman, managing partner of the BMI Group, which now owns it, says it’s not all that long. He says a clean-up of the environment and the building has been accomplished
Now, Pinnacle Logistics has signed on to store material on its way to being used to build a hospital serving Moosonee and Moose Factory.
“So it’ll be a five-to-seven-year project of all the supplies that go into the hospital being located here,” Veldman remarks. “Some of them are already in there (the logistics centre).”
Veldman says it’ll be like the old shampoo commercial. This project will spawn other industries to come to Iroquois Falls and so on and so on…
And that, he says, means more jobs.
“The jobs created would be up to Pinnacle to say. I’m going to go on a guess that this first launch will create at least 25 indirect and direct jobs. It’s a great step forward.”
Ontario Northland Rail has committed $3-million to upgrading the tracks into town that haven’t been used since the mill closed. And BMI is bringing back the old Abitibi diesel locomotive that was sent to Thorold when the mill shut down.
