Maine paper mill employees asked for safety monitors for decades. It took 2 deaths to get them.

MAINE SUNDAY TELEGRAM • August 9, 2026

Most toilet paper, tissues, paper towels and napkins start out as woodchips. At mills like Woodland Pulp in Washington County they get cooked to a brown mush. The employees are regularly exposed to several toxic chemicals. A common practice in paper mills is to wear a personal monitor that detects hydrogen sulfide. Shawn Howland has lobbied four different superintendents for the monitors over his 27 years in the bleach plant. His requests were denied by various corporate owners. A toxic gas leak that killed two men in January has cost the investment firm that owns the plant, International Grand Investment Corporation, $16 million in property damage plus nearly $800,000 in proposed fines, and any penalties that may result from future lawsuits by the families of the victims. The personal gas monitors for the employees who needed them cost about $100 each.