Fort St. John mill celebrates 250,000 injury-free hours with family event

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. — A Fort St. John building material mill celebrated a major workplace safety milestone.

Louisiana-Pacific’s (LP) Peace Valley celebrated 250,000 injury-free hours as of September and completed its annual 100 Days of Summer safety initiative without a single incident.

To mark the accomplishment, LP hosted a Family Day at the Mill event on September 10th, bringing together employees, their loved ones and the community for a behind-the-scenes look at the facility.

The Family Day celebration featured a barbecue, kids’ activities and tours of the mill so loved ones could see where employees work and why safety is so important.

Plant manager Chuck Skinner said the achievement is a significant one for the team, especially given challenges in the past.

“For us, it’s a huge accomplishment, especially after last year,” Skinner told Energeticcity.ca. “Unfortunately, we did have five injuries on site, and fortunately, they weren’t anything major. 

“It goes to all the dedication and hard work we put in over the last year. It’s a great accomplishment.”

The mill’s 100 Days of Summer safety initiative ran from the May long weekend through Labour Day, with a focus on “leadership, accountability and frontline engagement,” according to Skinner.

Looking ahead, Skinner said maintaining momentum is key to maintaining safety at the mill.

“We have a supervisor kickstart training that we’ll be doing here right away,” he said. “The biggest one is just be vigilant, make sure we don’t get complacent.”

He added that LP is investing in upgrades to further improve safety, including better ergonomics, robotics to reduce manual labour and replacing ladders with stairs.

Skinner also noted that LP has been recognized at the national level.

“We’ve actually received the APA Safest Company Award 13 times out of the 17-year history of that program. So that was pretty neat,” he said.