The Criminal Justice Branch made the right move in not pursuing charges for the Lakeland Mills explosion and fire, the sawmill's owner said Tuesday, but admitted a better job could have been done to control dust from the beetle-killed pine it had been processing.
"Could we have done a better job of controlling dust? In hindsight, yes," Sinclar Group Forest Products president Greg Stewart said in reading out a statement during a media conference. "Could we have done more to encourage our employees to speak up if they felt there were safety issues? In hindsight, perhaps."
Stewart later said he spoke with workers in January 2012, prior to the explosion at the Babine Forest Products sawmill the same month, about their right to refuse unsafe work but was not aware of a single employee who subsequently exercised that right.
And after the fatal explosion at Babine, near Burns Lake, Stewart said the CJB acknowledged steps were taken to address dust issues.
"I think we did our best to get as much information as we could around what the cause of the Babine incident was so we could respond... the understanding around dust was not great, both within the industry and within regulators," Stewart said.
Stewart's comments appear to contradict those from Bruce Germyn, a Lakeland Mills employee who suffered severe injuries from the April 23, 2012 explosion.
Germyn, who attended a press conference with B.C. NDP leader Adrian Dix, said he warned management that if they don't clean out the dust, the mill was going to blow up like Babine, only to be laughed at or ignored.
"A lot of the crew had taken it upon themselves to write in the sawdust messages to management," Germyn said. "People were writing 'clean me" with the manager's name. The manager's windows that were overlooking the mill, people were writing in the sawdust 'I can't breathe, clean me.'"
Germyn, a 46-year-old father of five, said he has 21 years to go before retirement but, because of his injuries, is not currently employable. He said his burns were so severe family members did not recognize him at first.
"Physically, from my neck up, I have pain," Germyn said. "My face is numb, my lips feel like a pin cushion, my ears burn all the time - they sting, they ring, I have ear aches - and I have pain and pressure in my head. My legs were severely burned too and there's numb-feeling pain."
Stewart said the rebuilt sawmill will feature new systems to "eliminate the risk from combustible dust and other safety hazards," when it opens this fall. Employees will also be given proper training so they can recognize hazards, he said.
"As well, we're going to take about the right to refuse unsafe work and that there are no repercussions," Stewart said.
Asked about the skepticism workers could have about his comments, Stewart said "I couldn't even begin to imagine the challenges and the hardship that some of the employees have been through.
"They've had an incredible two years of not only personal hardship but they're living the grief of losing a friend and co-worker. In some cases you have mental and emotional injuries that run deep and are very tough to get over.
"So I'm not suggesting that they're going to come back and trust us. We have to do a better job of earning their trust and we're going to do our best to do that.
"At the same time, (in the CJB's decision), they have found that when you balance out the evidence, Lakeland was doing a lot of work to try and address the dust issue based on what we knew at the time."
WorkSafeBC will likely impose a financial penalty on Sinclar. Babine was ordered to pay slightly more than $1 million of which $914,139.62 was a claims cost levy while the administrative penalty was $97,500 - well below the maximum $625,000 WorkSafeBC can impose.
