Prince George, BC – The search to find a long-term economic strategy for Burns Lake in the wake of last month’s deadly sawmill fire is still in the preliminary stages…

At a meeting with stakeholders at the end of January, a task force was struck to deal with the economic crisis resulting from the loss of community’s main industry – one sub-committee was established to work on short-term immediate relief for the workers affected.  To that end, a jobs fair is set for this Friday at Muriel Mould Elementary School.

As part of the quest for long-term solutions, a second sub-committee is reviewing fibre supply in the region.  Babine Forest Products had been a joint venture between the Babine Lake First Nations and Oregon-based Hampton Affiliates.  Hampton says adequate fibre supply is a big part of any decision to re-build. 

Nechako Lakes MLA, John Rustad, says the review is still in "very early days".  But he says, "Working with Hampton on the fibre supply is something we’ve been doing over the last couple of years already, so we had a lot of the groundwork done."

"There are some options that we are taking a long, hard look at," he says.  "We think we can find some additional fibre, but, of course, the biggest factor in all of this is we want to make sure we’re not in a situation where we take fibre from an adjacent supply block and end up creating a shortage problem for another mill."

"(Another) question will be ‘How much (additional fibre) is enough?’, and so we still need to do that work with Hampton."  Rustad says the two sides are expected to have some discussions this week.  At the outset, the review was to take between four and six weeks.