By Andrew de Souza

Questions remain about Big River mill announcement

Aug 5, 2011 | 6:32 AM

Big River has been a saw mill town since the day it started as a community more than 100 years ago, so it’s no surprise that residents are happy milling operations could begin soon.

“I’d say over 50 per cent of our families in our town are connected to the mill in some way, through logging or trucking or maintenance or actually working at the site,” said resident Maisie Krienke.

“It won’t be as big as we were used to, but they’re saying 100 and some employees and that’s 100 and some employees we don’t have at the moment.”

It would of course be great news for a local economy that’s been struggling since the mill closed in 2006, but people aren’t ready to celebrate even with yesterday’s announcement.

Wally Wilson has been a contractor with a lot of work at the mill for more than 30 years. He said he won’t get too excited until a mill is actually up and running.

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“I hope things fly into some kind of operational mode more than something that’s hit and miss — that they get up and running and keep running,” he said.

“This has all yet to be seen, whether it’s actually going to come to pass or not.”

That cautious optimism comes from the seeming ambiguity of the announcement the premier made while in Big River on Thursday.

The announcement was that the province would award lumber reserves that had been set aside for the community to Carrier Wood Products.

The confusion comes from the fact that Carrier doesn’t own the mill in Big River, though company president Bill Koryband said they would look at either purchasing the existing site or constructing a new one.

The site is currently owned by the British Columbia-based company, EACOM. It’s been dormant since 2006 because at the time the province refused to allocate lumber from the Prince Albert Forest Management Area.

The company is currently engaged in two legal suits with province, one for defamation and the other from withholding that lumber allocation. The company said they have all intentions of continuing with those suits.

Jeanette Wicinsky-Dunn is the local provincial NDP candidate and member of the town’s Forestry Task Committee. She said her and many other people shared the same confusion.

“We’ve heard that rumor in the community for the last three or four months. Everybody got this email that there was this huge announcement and think it was a bit of a let-down not to learn anything other than Carrier was coming to town to do business,” she said.

“I feel a little sad that the people of Big River had almost a sleepless night waiting for this huge announcement and nobody’s really sure what this announcement means for the community. We still have as many questions now as we did two years ago.”

adesouza@panow.com