Tolko’s Lakeview division will reopen Wednesday.
The mill has been down since July 15 due to weather-related harvesting curtailments.
“With the wet weather we’ve had we just haven’t been able to sustain the level of wood that we needed to keep the mill running,” says Mark Stevens, Tolko’s general manager of Cariboo operations.
Although Stevens expressed confidence that the lumber currently in the yard could sustain the operation long term, he indicated there were still some concerns.
“There’s never any guarantees but our contractors are working hard and our woodland staff are working hard to do what they can,” he says, adding that while the operation has been down it has been accepting log deliveries.
“We’re anticipating being able to sustain the necessary level of supply. We think we’ve been down long enough to get sufficient supply in the pipeline but it is weather dependent for sure.”
It is not the company’s intent to shut down again, Stevens says.
Lakeview’s planer will come on line next Monday as it has to wait for rough lumber inventory to build up.
Tolko’s Soda Creek division, which has also experienced a temporary curtailment for the same reason, reopened Monday to full operations after being shut for six days.