Skeena Sawmills, in Terrace, BC, was temporarily shut down late last year after a WorkSafe BC safety audit found high levels of combustible sawdust at the location, according to the Terrace Standard Monday.
The stop work order, issued Dec. 19, 2013, was lifted the following day after a clean up took place.
A WorkSafe BC report states that inspectors issued the stop work order after finding a build-up of sawdust at the east end of Skeena Sawmills basement near the chipper, hog and sawdust blower. Also found were motors and gears covered in dust and “oil-soaked fibre on the pumps and trays,” the report indicated.
“This location is challenged,” reads the report, “with a labyrinth of conveying systems in the basement with transition points that drops excessive amounts of combustible dust into hard to reach areas.”
Skeena Sawmills processes 95 per cent hemlock and balsam and only five per cent lodgepole pine.