Most of the employees at a Longview paper mill shuttered by a fatal chemical spill this spring will return to work later this month, as efforts to restart the damaged facility move forward, union and company officials said Thursday.
“A majority" of employees at the Nippon Dynawave Packaging facility will be back on the job Oct. 12, according to a spokesperson for the Association of Western Pulp and Paper Workers.
In a separate statement, the company said the plan to "return to work with limited exceptions continues the necessary steps to bring operations back online."
Any workers not called back will continue to be paid until at least Jan. 17 by Nippon Dynawave, which is owned by Japan-based Nippon Paper. In July, the company agreed to extend pay for all mill workers until Oct. 11.
Thursday's announcements will mean a measure of financial certainty for the mill's more than 500 workers, following the May 26 collapse of a storage tank containing highly caustic "white liquor" that left 11 people dead and injured at least eight.
"Our members need … to know that their jobs are going to be there for a while," said union president Scott Tift. "Especially as you're going into the holiday season, that's such a big thing.”
It's also more evidence that the aging facility is moving toward an eventual restart.
In August, crews began dismantling the massive white liquor storage tank and removing and rebuilding other tanks involved in the process of turning wood materials into pulp for paper goods. Before the accident, the mill produced pulp as well as paper and packaging materials for food containers and other products.
The company has also started test runs of its papermaking machines using pulp purchased from other mills.
After months of uncertainty over whether Nippon would simply shutter the mill, such developments have workers and community members feeling more optimistic about a restart, Tift said.
Similarly, the latest pay extension will help keep idled workers from taking jobs with other employers. If workers move on, it could make it harder to get the Nippon plant up and running, Tift said.
Despite the feeling of momentum, no one has yet offered even a general estimate for when the mill might restart, much less return to full capacity.
It's also unclear how a restart timeline might be affected by the results of an investigation by the state Department of Labor & Industries. As of late August, the agency expected those results by Nov. 20.
Nippon Dynawave is coordinating recovery work with the Department of Labor & Industries and other state agencies, but the company isn't required to wait for the investigation results before restarting the mill, Matt Ross, a Labor & Industries spokesperson, said in August.
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