Not great news for the Wawa area.

Announced yesterday, it looks like the wood pellet plant south of Hawk Junction is closing its doors indefinitely due to financial issues and economic factors:

Cash-Strapped RenTech Pulls Plug on Wawa Pellet Mill

(Other articles are also indicating that the troubled company lost as much as 17% in stock value on today’s trading by the lunch hour.)

This facility is the one built just off Highway 101 south of Hawk Junction, near the old ACR Limer siding, in 1995-96 by Jaeger Strandboard to produce OSB (oriented strandboard) sheeting and was shut down by Weyerhaeuser, the then-current owner in 2008. In 2013 RenTech bought the idled mill to convert into a wood pellet manufacturing facility, and after some startup issues starting production in 2015, shipping pellets out by covered hopper via CN. And now it appears, closed again in 2017 unless another company decides to purchase the plant from RenTech.