Prince George, B.C.- Darren Beattie admits he said the Lakeland mill was the  dirtiest he had  ever seen, when he visited the site on February 6th 2012,  but  the comments  have to be  placed in the right context.Beattie was  an Occupational Safety Officer with WorkSafeBC, and  had visited the Lakeland Mills  on many occasions over a ten year period.  He testified  at the Coroner’s inquest into the deaths of Glenn Roche and Alan Little that  Lakeland “was quite a clean mill in comparison with others in the industry.  When I say it was the dirtiest I had seen, the thing I noticed was the light film on handrails and stuff, and that wasn’t normal for them.”

That February 6th  visit was sparked by an anonymous call to the WorkSafe BC office from  someone  saying he was a worker at Lakeland and the  amount of dust in the mill  risked “turning the mill into the next Burns Lake sawmill”,  a reference  to the fatal explosion that had occurred  about three weeks earlier at the Babine Forest products mill in Burns Lake.

While the  call came in  on Friday February 3rd, Beattie, and  WorkSafe colleague Kim Hess, didn’t visit Lakeland until Monday morning.  Previous testimony has pegged Mondays  as the best  and cleanest day at the mill because it was the first shift after the weekend cleanup.

Beattie said that visit did not result in any  orders being written against Lakeland,  as “We found the accumulation did not warrant a housekeeping order.”   He also testified he was not aware of what the  acceptable standard was for  dust accumulation,  and that while he was aware dust was “combustible”  he was not aware that  given the right conditions,  it could also  be explosive.

He said  he  had advised Lakeland  to  clean up  the  mill, but  warned against using compressed air because   it is not  an effective  cleaning method,  can pose a health hazard by  dispersing dust into the air,  and could create  a flammable  situation.

Throughout the inquest, lawyers have  used the word “combustible”  as being synonymous with “explosive”.  Beattie  explained it this way; “Diesel fuel is combustible,  gasoline is  flammable” and that  diesel would not ignite as easily as gas.  He added that while he knew dust could burn  and that it was possible  for it to explode in a  confined space such as a bag house,  “Nobody had the knowledge that a complete facility could blow up.”

In looking forward, or  examining the Lakeland tragedy and  coming away with ‘lessons learned’ Beattie said there was probably a lot of  “should have, could have, would have” thinking  looking back at the incident, but added, ” Probably a lot of what should have been done, has been done.”