Big River Group To Meet With Government Reps

Big River Group To Meet With Government Reps

Wednesday, December 09, 2009 at 10:53

 

 

There may yet be life for the Big River sawmill.

 

A meeting has been arranged between a group working to get a timber supply for the Big River sawmill and the government.

 

It will be held Prince Albert this Thursday at the Forestry Centre, from 9:30 a.m. to noon.

 

Energy and Resources Minister Bill Boyd and a representative from the premier’s office will be there.

 

Brian Brownfield is the mayor of Big River and chairman of the task force to get the mill re-opened.

 

The group was upset when the government recently announced its new allocation of timber in the Prince Albert region, and no timber was available for the Big River mill.

 

Since then, the group has held a couple of meetings, including a half-hour meeting with Premier Brad Wall.

 

Brownfield says the government is advocating to set up a pellet plant instead, but he is not so keen on that idea.

 

“They’re really pushing this pellet plant issue, but there’s a lot of negatives about a pellet plant. I mean, it’s okay to put up a pellet plant, but where do we get the sawdust from? We’re not going to chip up good saw trees to make pellets out of them when you can make beautiful timber and logs out of them,” he says.