CHILDERSBURG – AbitibiBowater announced Thursday that one of the paper machines at its Coosa Pines mill will immediately be idle for an indefinite period of time.

The idling of machine No. 3, one of two machines at the facility used for making newsprint, at Coosa Pines AbitibiBowater could mean laying off 85 employees at the plant within the next two weeks. This will also impact the mill’s capacity to produce newsprint by 170,000 metric tons.

Debbie Johnston, director of public relations for AbitibiBowater’s U.S. operations, said a depressed market for newsprint over the past year and a half led to the difficult decision, but the market will continue to be evaluated in hopes that some workers might return to their jobs.

“It’s going to be a couple of weeks before we know exactly which employees will be affected,” Johnston said. “We look at seniority rights and evaluate our union workers as part of that determination. We have to match production with demand for paper and create a more focused approach.”

Shutting down one machine in Coosa Pines is just one part of a “Focused Downtime Initiative” the Montreal-based company implemented Thursday. The initiative will also affect four mills in Canada and decrease overall production for the company by 1.3 million metric tons.

A paper mill in Beaupré, Quebec, must be idle by Oct. 31 until further notice; a paper mill in Mersey, Nova Scotia, will continue operating at 50 percent of its production capacity; one paper machine in Fort Frances, Ontario, must be idle by Oct. 31 until further notice; and a paper machine in Clermont, Quebec, must be idle by Oct. 31, until further notice.

Earlier restructuring in Canada included indefinite idling of a paper machine in Thunder Bay, Ontario, as of Aug. 5 and current downtime for a paper mill in Dolbeau, Quebec.

Johnston said AbitibiBowater also had to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy as a corporation in April. The Coosa Pines mill had already experienced some difficulties of its own when the decision was made to only operate the facility two weeks out of every month.

“Rather than stop and start all of our facilities, we wanted to focus on specific machines and specific facilities and allow the rest of the Coosa Pines facility to run on a consistent basis,” Johnston said. “This is a difficult and challenging time for all of our employees.”

Childersburg Mayor B.J. Meeks, who once worked at AbitibiBowater in better economic times for the company, remembers as many as 1,600 employees being on the payroll in Coosa Pines at one time. The facility currently employs 495 workers, which will be reduced to about 400 after the idling of one machine.

“I know they will make every effort they can to try and keep that mill running,” Meeks said. “This community has depended on that mill for a long time and they have been good to us. I hope they can switch over to other products and bring some of those jobs back.

Meeks said he made the decision to take an early retirement package in an earlier restructuring of the company, so he can relate to the fears of the workers currently wondering if they will have a job in the next few weeks.

He also said it must be hard for employees to hear that the idling is indefinite, but it implies a bit of hope that at least some of the jobs could be reinstated.

“If you work in any industry, you have times when you think about what will happen if you don’t have a job,” Meeks said. “You always wonder how long the machine will continue to run or the possibility of facing a layoff.”