In Gordon Hoekstra's article of Sat. April 28 is a sentence that should raise a big red flag for sawmill owners/operators, Worksafe BC, and all sawmill workers.
I want to avoid any hint of blame here so I'm paraphrasing to eliminate names: "He likely was blowing dust off his equipment with an air hose during a break."
Blowing sawdust with compressed air would raise a cloud of fine powder that would be far reaching and very dangerous. If that is common practice in sawmills, it's really playing Russian Roulette, especially with very volatile dry pine sawdust.
Even if the dust concentration stayed below the explosion level, everybody in the place not wearing a dust mask would inhale the fumes. Vacuum systems should be the only thing used for cleaning sawdust or any other dust.
The article also goes on to suggest that there is a higher level of pitch in beetle-killed pine. That is definitely like gun powder and is all the more reason for mill-wide vacuum
systems for dust collection.
Lothar Wendland
Prince George
