WATCH ABOVE: 16×9’s investigation “Deadly Mills”
A Prince George, B.C, sawmill that was flattened by an explosion in 2012, killing two workers, resumes operation today—a event met with mixed feelings by survivors, and the families of the men who died.
The Lakeland Mill was destroyed in April, 2012, by a blast blamed on combustible sawdust in the plant. Workplace safety investigators said the accident was “preventable” but no charges were laid against the owners of the plant, the Sinclar Group of Prince George. Government lawyers ruled that the investigations had been bungled.
The owners said combustible sawdust was an unknown risk. However, a 16×9 investigation found that dust fires and explosions have been a known hazard for decades throughout North America. And workers told 16×9 the company had ample warning about the risks of accumulated sawdust, especially in the wake of another fatal sawmill explosion months earlier in Burns Lake, B.C. But they say their warnings were ignored.
Ronda Roche, the widow of Glenn Roche, one of the two men killed in the blast, says the full story of the accident has not yet been told.
“The owners have their super mill and will surely be even more highly profitable than before. They can carry on business as usual in the place that killed my husband, took my son’s father.”
The new Lakeland plant will employ 110 workers—50 fewer than the earlier workforce. It was rebuilt with a number of safety upgrades, including fewer flat surfaces on which sawdust can collect, and an automated dust control system.
A coroner’s inquest into the two deaths will be held next spring in Prince George.
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