S TANDARD TERRACE
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VOL. 27 NO. 11
Mill closes temporarily
www.terracestandard.com
Wednesday, July 8, 2015
By JOSH MASSEY HOT WEATHER and cool markets in China have resulted in the almost total closure of Skeena Sawmills, the city’s only large sawmill. Mill official Roger Keery said the continuing hot weather has brought on extremely dry conditions in the woods, resulting in a slowdown of activity and a resulting shortage of logs for the mill. There’s also been a slowdown in the Chinese lumber market meaning that the mill’s production has been piling up at port facilities in Prince Rupert and at its site on Hwy16 just west of town. A skeleton crew of 10 people from what was a 90-person workforce is at work and the mass layoff will last at least a month, says Keery. “When we first saw this coming, we said we were going to take one month off, and I expect it’s going to be at least that. Beyond that I don’t want to say,” said Keery last week of the layoffs which took place two weeks ago. He said the Chinese demand for lumber cooled off after the government raised interest rates. Until the wood starts selling again, Skeena Sawmills won’t be operating at full capacity, Keery said. “They currently have about two months production in Rupert, and a month and a half of production here,” he said. “We simply haven’t been able to move our volume.” About 15 per cent of the mill’s production was planned for specialty timber markets in North America, but the fire hazard has meant that the logging company, Terrace Timber, who supplies Skeena Sawmills with raw logs, had to shut down operations on June 17. “Our logging sites right now are under a severe fire hazard threat, so we have had to shut them down and it’s impacted our log supply, so we are short on logs and don’t have enough wood coming in to run the business right now,” said Keery. Logging operations in this area are mainly done with a cable system, which means fire vulnerability because of the friction from moving cables on dry land. Employees are represented by the United Steelworkers Union and union business agent Rick Nelson said they’ll be relying on employment insurance once through their waiting period. “They don’t get any money when they are laid off. They can apply for employment insurance. They are hourly workers, they are not on salary,” he said. Workers on employment insurance receive 55 per cent of their earnings to a maximum of $524 a week. “Obviously there may be some other issues internally going on, whether it be finances or whatnot, but I am not privy to that,” Nelson added. “The planer mill is shut down completely. Some of the office staff have also been laid off. The remaining crew is doing some chipping and limited sawing of lumber.” And while the layoff will be a blow to the area, Keery says there is light at the end of the tunnel, as the Chinese markets are already rebounding.
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CECILE FAVRON PHOTO
■■ Water rescue MATT DYCK, left, and Colin Willoner slice through the waters of the Skeena River in the vicinity of the old and new bridges June 27, part of a large group of Terrace Search and Rescue volunteers who underwent an intense training course to boost their skills. For more, please see Page A27.
Developer backs off THE POSTPONEMENT of a Vancouver developer’s plans for a multi-family complex at the top of Lanfear Hill might give the city the time it needs to fully study traffic flow on the Bench, say city officials. Increased traffic was a focal point of resident opposition to the plans by a numbered company from Vancouver to build up to 69 housing units on the property at 3725 Thomas, known as the old Kerby home, which overlooks the city near the top of the hill. The residents’ resistance to the development surfaced at a June 22 hearing regarding the company’s applica-
tion to rezone the five-acre property from single-family residential to multifamily residential. Council then decided to continue the hearing on July 13 after inviting company representatives to speak inperson about their plans. But the company then told the city last week it wouldn’t be appearing and said it was putting its development on hold for an unspecified length of time, indicating they wouldn’t revisit it until sometime next year. And this gives the city time to look at the traffic bottleneck on Lanfear Hill, says city councillor Brian Downie.
“Over the past two years, I have noticed that traffic has really built up alongside the improvement of the economy,” said Downie. “And the developments on the Bench bring us to more of an issue sooner rather than later. “I have been concerned about congestion for a while and I think that [traffic on Lanfear Hill] is just another example of congestion that needs to be looked at now,” he said. Downie said that he would like to see the city focus on Lanfear in a study to prevent the problems on the hill from becoming worse.
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On ceremony
First firefighters
Salmon Run
Local military man spends summer on ceremonial guard \COMMUNITY A10
Passenger numbers mean airport gets its own firefighters \NEWS A5
Annual event sees fantastic finishes from variety of participants \SPORTS A25