Steve Zika, chief executive officer of Hampton Affiliates said he hopes the province will come to a decision on the fibre supply issues that will determine a rebuild of the Babine Forest Products sawmill soon.
"Time is of the essence in terms of this process," he said.
Zika said now that a legislative committee has been formed and a public process is being initiated, a decision on the future of the sawmill will be further down the road than the company had originally planned.
Following the Babine Forest Products tragedy in January, MLA John Rustad and Minister of Tourism and Innovation Pat Bell as well as Lands and Natural Resources Operations Minister Steve Thomson had hoped to come to a decision about the fibre supply issues surrounding the possible rebuilding of the Babine Forest Products sawmill by the end of March or beginning of April.
The trio were in Burns Lake following the tragedy and were adamant that a decision could be made by April 2012 at the latest.
However last month Rustad put the brakes on the process when he said to Lakes District News that arriving at a decision will be a more lengthy process than the six to eight weeks originally announced.
As reported in the Lakes District News edition of May 16, Rustad said it could be fall by the time the province arrives at a decision, and that a decision will not be made before going to the public first.
Zika said, “It is important that the community is united and is supportive of the process and that the community realize the importance of timber supply ... the sawmill provided employment and helped the local economy.”
He believes there is enough timber in the lakes timber supply area to support all of the local mills, but expressed concerns about sawmills located in other timber supply areas coming in and logging.
“There has been a lot of timber taken from the area, but there is still a lot left. A lot of that is dead and not viable now, but there is still enough left to run the local mills. Other mills in other communities have taken out timber from the Lakes timber supply area and up sized their mills as a result ... it’s a difficult issue and we were hoping that this would be done quicker. Mayors of other towns are weighing in and I think that behind the scenes other competitors have come in with opinions or concerns .... it is all part of the process, but we just want Lakes District timber to be for Lakes District mills.”
“If this is the case we would have enough timber, but when you have competition from other districts coming in and taking fibre out of the area the community has to stand up and say enough is enough. We have to say we want to keep our wood within our district … keep this timber for local mills. If large ‘super mills’ keep taking wood out of the district it is going to be difficult to find a fibre supply.”
“Not only are they coming in and harvesting dead pine but they are also taking out the green timber that we need for a mid term timber supply ... it’s a battle and the community needs to stand up and fight,” he said.
According to Zika, stumpage prices and competition wouldn’t be an issue if logging in the lakes timber supply area was restricted to just local area mills. “The stumpage price for timber is set based on common factors in the Northern and Southern Interior and lumber markets. So in theory the stumpage price in the Lakes District will approximate the stumpage price in the Morice District. There are other districts around the province that only provide logs for mills in their district,” he said.
As for Babine Forest Products, Zika said that 40 hourly employees, chosen by seniority, are back at work drying and planing the remaining logs.
Rail cars are expected to roll onto the site this week and the lumber will be wrapped and loaded.
There has also been work for the sawmills regular contractors processing the logs.
“There is a fair amount of work ... a lot of trucks, but I can’t say how many contractors are working on the log yard side, there’s about 120,000 cubic metres of logs in the yard.”
Zika said insurance adjustors have been working on the site for approximately three weeks and he expects them to wrap up their work within the next week.
“No insurance proceeds have come in so far, so we are waiting to negotiate a claim,” he said.
Zika said, “We are still working on engineering and planning for the rebuild of the sawmill but this is in the preliminary stages and it all depends on a timber supply.”
Zika expects a new sawmill to be two-thirds the size of the previous Babine Forest Products sawmill, but said it would be too early to determine how many employees the sawmill would require.