Forestry industry anxiously watching situation

Andrew Watters can’t help but worry about the future.

He manages the Group Savoie sawmill in Foxbrook, Pictou County, and says there are only a few weeks’ worth of logs left to process before the company will have to start looking at laying off employees. It usually happens at some point each year but it’s not usually this early.

A bigger worry for forestry workers is the future of Northern Pulp.

In an industry that is interconnected, Watters hopes – for the sake of the sawmill he works at and others in the province – that Northern Pulp will be able to build a new effluent treatment facility and continue operation in Pictou County without interruption. More than 35 per cent of the saw logs that come into Group Savoie are from Northern Pulp, which, in the process of harvesting forests, sorts the wood and sends it to the place where the wood will get the highest value. It’s good for Northern Pulp because it gives the company greater value for the wood and good for Group Savoie because it provides quality logs that are often in short supply.

“It may all work out in time, but most people won’t have time to make it work out,” Watters said.

He gets frustrated when he hears a constant call from some people for the mill to be shut down.

“They’ve got to look at what’s going to happen in the community if there’s no pulp mill,” he said.