Hampton Affiliates Surprised by WorkSafe Decision
Thursday, November 29, 2012 @ 3:31 PM
Prince George, B.C.- Hampton Affiliates, owners of the Babine Forest Products mill which was destroyed in an explosion and fire last January, has issued a brief statement following WorkSafe B.C.’s announcement today. (see previous story)
WorkSafe says it will not be issuing the report on the investigation into the Babine Forest Products blast, or the Lakeland Mills tragedy in Prince George, until after Crown has decided whether or not it will move forward with court cases based on possible violations of the Workers Compensation Act.
“We have cooperated fully throughout the WorkSafe investigation and will continue to cooperate to bring this matter to conclusion” says Hampton’s CEO Steve Zika. “We were surprised by this announcement and disappointed that we are not yet able to see the report of WorkSafe’s findings so that we can fully understand what happened that tragic night of the explosion. Because we have not received any additional substantive information today for this decision from WorkSafe, we cannot comment further at this time. We deeply regret the tragic accident that took two of our employees’ lives and injured many more, forever impacting our employees and their families.”
WorkSafe BC says it just completed its investigations into the two explosions a couple of days ago, and wants to be clear that they found nothing that would suggest there was anything criminal about the two tragedies. WorkSafe says it will now starting going through thousands of documents from the two investigations to forward to Crown for consideration.
Comments
So we have not heard about anyone from the BC Fire Comissioner’s office or regional fire department inspecting this plant in the same fashion that plants appear to be inspected in PG.
Were inspections made? … or do we have a system which works only for plants in major urban centres? …. or, if inspections were made, was dust not a problem at this plant? …. or are fire inspectors not trained to deal with the various types of installations in their regions or responsibilities? …. and if so, who would have to provide the costs of bringing in outside inspectors to fill the gap?
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