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By James Mallory

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At the same time the idle Bennett soil treatment facility is about to be sold, The Northern Light has learned an international company is planning considerable expansion in the Belledune region in the near future.

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On July 3, Bennett Environmental Inc. announced that it was entering into an agreement to sell the plant for $2.9 million. Jack Shaw, president of Bennett, said the transaction is expected to close at the end of August but he wouldn't divulge the name of the company the plant was being sold to.

"Nope," said Mr. Shaw when asked by The Northern Light in a telephone interview if he could say who the new owners are. "None of my business, right? The buyer will at the appropriate time identify themselves."

Bob Kiely is the general manager of Envirem Technologies, a waste recycling company which is part of the Atcon group. He said he could not say if Envirem was purchasing the idle Bennett plant but he did note that Envirem has had a small-scale operation based out of Belledune since 1994 and the company is entering into considerable expansion in the near future.

"What I can tell you is that Envirem has got considerable expansion in the Belledune region and at this point we can't comment further," Mr. Kiely told The Northern Light in a telephone interview.

"We've just been landed a long-term contract and we have considerable expansion in the Belledune area."

Envirem is an export-based environmental manufacturing company that specializes in green technologies. It has eight facilities in Atlantic Canada including a headquarters in Miramichi. They manufacture, market and various organic products including: composts, organic soils, bark mulches, growing medias, potting soils and fertilizers under their trade names of Greenhouse GoldTM Organics and Nutri-WaveTM.

Mr. Kiely noted that Envirem exports a variety of products into the United States and they're starting to increase shipments by ocean. That's where the Port of Belledune – a deep water, year-round facility – comes into play.

"Envirem secured a long term contract with a company called Cemex for exporting aggregate into the...markets," explained Mr. Kiely. "We had a Panamax vessel with 50,000 tonnes that left on July 1 (from the Port of Belledune). It's the first shipment of many ships to come."

He said Envirem chose to expand in the village because "Belledune has a lot of infrastructure and resources and labour force."

Continued Mr. Kiely: "So we have considerable infrastructure requirements and we have expansion plans in Belledune...This year we're doing year zero in our long-term contract but we will be expanding up to 100 jobs in the Belledune area...We probably have 20 to 25 jobs right now (in Belledune)...and a lot of the employees are just brought in from other locations...Long term, next year we're going to hire mostly all local people."

In 2004, Bennet, a company based in Oakville, Ont., completed a $32 million soil treatment plant in Belledune's Renviro Park. The plant never opened, having failed to secure enough soil to process. In fact, Bennett didn't even advance to the point of obtaining its operating permit from the provincial government.

The plant faced other problems, notably an overhaul in head office management and a negative perception among various members of the public, resulting in various demonstrations early on that were organized by environmentalists and concerned citizens worried the plant would lead to pollution woes.

Even though the plant is now selling the building for about one tenth of the original building cost, $2.9 million, Mr. Shaw said it was time to move on.

"It's an assetthat is redundant to our business. We decided that we would be better to monetize it than to continue to hold the asset and the carrying costs associated with it. It's pretty straight forward, right?"

Mayor Nick Duivenvoorden said it's about time the plant finds a use.

"We know there were some people who had some concerns with Bennett's proposed operation so I think it's a good thing...for everybody that they're moving on and moving on permanently. They've got a wonderful facility there and if it can be deemed to be useful for somebody else, absolutely."

The mayor added that this isn't the first time the village has seen adversity when it comes to companies leaving the area. On April 13, 2005 the Canadian Gypsum plant in Belledune permanently closed after just over a dozen workers at the plant had been on strike since April 19, 2004. The workers had failed to reach a first contract with the company following union certification of the workers on July 2003 by the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers of Canada.

Mr. Duivenvoorden said the village worked with CGC to find a new tenant and were successful when the Shaw Group Ltd. wood pellet company out of Nova Scotia, officially moved into the CGC building last year.

"CGC vacated that facility under cloudy circumstances and I think we encouraged CGC to strongly consider parting company with their ownership of that facility when it became apparent that there was another company interest, that being Shaw," said the mayor. "So we've seen a vacant building become something very useful. I think that's the same thing happening for the Bennett facility."

Renviro Park Inc. opened in 2003 with the goal of developing new commercial opportunities in the environmental industries sector. To date, the only tenant in the park is Bennett Environmental Inc.