Lakeland Mills was warned in February about "accumulations of piles of wood dust in various areas of the mill" but no orders were issued by Worksafe BC as a result of the inspection.
The sawmill was destroyed in a massive fire Monday that killed two men and injured 22 more. The ignition of sawdust floating in the air has been suggested as a possible cause of the Lakeland incident, as well as the explosion and fire at Babine Forest Products in Burns Lake, which killed two men in January.
On Feb. 6 of this year, Worksafe BC officers Darren Beattie and Kim Hess inspected Lakeland Mills.
"We discussed the dust observed throughout the mill," wrote Hess in the inspection report. "At the time of the inspection, the airborne concentration appears to be below the exposure limit in the work areas visited. There are accumulations of piles of wood dust in various areas of the mill. We reviewed the requirement to prevent the accumulation of hazardous amounts of wood dust."
The report gave no recommendations or orders for Lakeland to address the issue.
WorkSafeBC inspectors recognized as early as 2009 that pine beetle-killed wood could affect the properties of the sawdust generated during the milling process.
The drier the wood (due to beetle kill) when it arrives at the mill's doorstep, the drier the sawdust, was the general belief from 2009 onward. No specific orders or precautions were given by WorkSafeBC to Lakeland Mills, according to WorkSafeBC's "five-year inspectional history" of Lakeland.
"Most processing saws and chipping heads are equipped with local exhaust ventilation, which appear to reduce accumulations of fine dust. No recent monitoring of exposure to wood dust has been conducted. Wood dust exposure will be further evaluated during subsequent inspections. This is an item that should be reevaluated due to the changes in productivity that has occurred over recent years and the fact that the majority of the wood being processed is dry beetle-killed pine," wrote Barry Nakahara, officer of the board, under the heading "Wood Dust" in a report on Lakeland dated Feb. 13, 2009.
In a follow-up report in May 2010, WorkSafeBC's Beattie wrote: "The employer [Lakeland's owner is Sinclar Group Forest Products] has recently conducted air monitoring for dust....These results were reviewed and no significant problems were noted."
The five-year retrospective of Lakeland's safety records shows two workers were seriously injured in a collision on June 23, 2007 between a scissor-lift and a forklift. Another worker was seriously injured on Aug. 11, 2011, when a leg was caught in a rotating chain sprocket.
These were the only major incidents at the Lakeland operation that caused injuries until the night of the explosion. WorkSafeBC inspectors frequently spotted safety issues and violations, however, during their tours of the Lakeland complex but these infractions were relatively minor and typical for the industry.
The one exception was recent. WorkSafeBC's regional manager, Bruce Clarke, issued Lakeland an administrative warning on Feb. 3, 2012, for failing to comply with an order, based on violations found during a safety inspection. There was no penalty for the noncompliance but it did effect Lakeland's level of standing with the workplace safety agency.
Lakeland Mills defends its safety record.
"What the report doesn't say is, it was an inspection done at the request of Lakeland," a company official said. "The company is, and you can ask the employees, one of the best mills in the industry for taking safety seriously. There had been a major upgrade done, lots of construction that had just been completed, so the company asked WorkSafeBC to come in and give the whole place a once-over to look for any safety hazards that hadn't been spotted."
