BANGOR DAILY NEWS • October 24, 2025
In 2015, and a boiler explosion forced the paper mill in Lincoln — then owned by Lincoln Paper and Tissue and employing more than 100 people — to file for bankruptcy, leaving the mill site vacant and in need of a $60 million chemical cleanup. The town acquired the mill, dam and nearly 400 surrounding acres in the years following the closure, and razed many buildings to develop the area into the Lincoln Technology Park. Now, Lincoln is looking ahead to 2027, when the largest battery system in the world is slated to be built on the former mill site. But the town is asking companies coming to the mill site to create a fund to pay for expenses from future closures. Lincoln is doing what it failed to do in the past: plan for the worst.