Hundreds of workers at the Longview paper mill that was closed by a deadly accident in May will continue to receive full wages, the company announced Friday.
“We will be paying staff through October 11, whether they are instructed to come in or not,” a Nippon Dynawave Packaging spokesperson said in a statement Friday morning about workers idled by the May 26 spill of highly caustic liquid that left 11 dead.
But company officials, state regulators and union officials still don't have a timeline for restarting the massive facility, which produces materials used to manufacture paper cups, cartons and other products.
One huge unknown: how an already complex restart process is being complicated by the investigation into the catastrophic failure of the 900,000-gallon tank that stored a caustic material known as white liquor.
We are working with Nippon to make sure evidence relevant to our investigation is preserved as they go through their process to restart," said Matt Ross, spokesperson for the state Department of Labor and Industries, which is overseeing the investigation.
That means continued uncertainty not only for the mill's roughly 500 employees, but also for the larger community of local companies that supplied wood chips the mill used for raw material.
Kevin Wirkkala, who has run a chipping company in neighboring Wahkiakum County since the 1990s, was sending 12 to 15 truckloads of chips to the mill a day. Since the accident, he has laid off half of his 12 workers.
"We're trying to hang on to the rest, but I don't know," said Wirkkala. "As time goes by, it gets harder."
Welcome relief
Despite those uncertainties, the pay extension is welcome news for Nippon Dynawave workers and their families, whose lives have been on hold since one of the deadliest industrial incidents in modern state history.
"I know it's an extension, not a final answer, but it takes away some of the financial stress," said Pattie Kuhns, who operated boilers and other heavy machinery at the mill and is a member of the Association of Western Pulp and Paper Workers Local 580.
That relief is being felt across Longview and the rest of Cowlitz County. The timber and paper industries have been an economic mainstay for decades, and, unlike elsewhere in the state, those industries haven't seen sharp declines in employment.
Around 2,300 workers, or around 6% of the county workforce, work in the paper industry, according to data from the state Employment Security Department. Workers make an average of $112,000 a year, compared with $70,000 for the county workforce overall.
Even compared with other manufacturing jobs in Cowlitz County, paper industry pay is "definitely on the higher side,” said Emily Robertson, an economist at the department who covers Southwest Washington.
But wages are only one part of the mill's impact in a complicated economic ecosystem of suppliers and customers.
Japan-based Nippon Paper purchased the Longview mill from timber giant Weyerhaeuser as part of a broader adaptation to falling global demand for traditional paper products and the growing appetite for paper packaging.
Built in the early 1950s, the plant can produce up to 300,000 tons of “liquid packaging” material a year — “enough to make 6 billion quart-size milk cartons,” according to the Northwest Pulp & Paper Association.
Although much of the mill's output gets exported, a lot is sold domestically.
The facility was providing around 75,000 tons of kraft slurry pulp a year to Norpac, a neighboring facility that produces lightweight recycled packaging papers, according to media reports.
It's unclear whether Norpac's production was affected or if the facility has found alternative supplies. The company did not respond to questions Friday.
Nippon Dynawave also provides wastewater treatment for Norpac and other nearby facilities — a legacy from the days when Weyerhaeuser operated a campus of facilities. Those services were unaffected by the accident, according to the state Department of Ecology.
The bigger question is what happens to Nippon Dynawave's supplier network.
"Log truckers, chip haulers and small timber operators built their businesses around that flow," said Lindsey Cope, vice president of the Cowlitz Economic Development Council. With the accident, the mill's "chip intake went to zero overnight."
Many chip suppliers are small operators. Wirkkala, with the Wahkiakum County chipping company, said his crew processed leftovers from Weyerhaeuser timber operations near Mount St. Helens.
He said he'd heard estimates that Nippon Dynawave took around 200 loads of chips a day. He and others said the mill drew on supplies from many operators across Washington and Oregon.
Lee Tischer, a Wahkiakum County commissioner, said the fear now is that extended closure could push some smaller operators out of business, which could eventually affect supplies for the mill once it reopens.
"People don't realize that a mill like that keeps everybody going," Tischer said. But in turn, those smaller companies are the ones that "keep the chips flying and keep the (mill) rolling," he added.
No clear timeline
Much of this comes down to how long suppliers and others have to wait for the mill to come back online, which appears to depend heavily on the pace of the investigation.
Neither the company nor regulators have offered specifics.
L&I said it is focused on the investigation and ensuring worker safety during the restart process. Nippon Dynawave has made only general comments suggesting a time frame of several months at the least.
"In the coming months, (Nippon Dynawave) will continue supporting remediation efforts and the independent investigations and reviews currently underway, while cooperating fully with all relevant agencies,” the company said in a notice to workers Friday morning.
“We are following guidance from authorities and evaluating operations as more information becomes available. We will continue to share updates as decisions are made,” the company said.
Officials with the Association of Western Pulp and Paper Workers have also warned against a quick turnaround.
“Restarting a complex industrial facility following an event of this magnitude is an extraordinarily involved process,” the union said Friday. "Every step toward restarting operations must be undertaken carefully and safely.”
Tischer, the Wahkiakum County commissioner, and Wirkkala, the chipping company owner, said they've heard concerns that the closure might drag out or that the mill might not reopen at all.
Some worry that the market for paper products is oversupplied. Others fear that regulators might not allow a restart at all.
Mike Karnofski, a City Council member for nearby Kelso and a former engineer at the mill when Weyerhaeuser owned it, conceded that global demand for some paper products, like newsprint, has fallen. But he said demand for food-grade paper remains strong, including in Japan.
State Sen. Jeff Wilson, R-Longview, said such closure fears are understandable, given the long history of mill closures and layoffs in Washington and Oregon.
But Wilson thinks the massive investments Nippon Paper has already made in the Longview plant, coupled with the mill's interconnections with other companies and the hard-to-obtain permits it currently has for wastewater treatment, make it extremely unlikely Nippon would shutter the facility.
"You don't throw that away," said Wilson, who worked for 23 years on the site as a contractor.
But Wilson thinks the restart could drag on, as company officials and regulators work through a process that would have been complicated even without a massive accident.
In a facility like this, Wilson said, "there's no switch to just turn on.
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