District truckers and their customers may as well dust off their old “Supertramp” tapes because they’re all going to be taking the long way home for the next few months.
The announcement last week by the Ministry of Transportation that the bridge on Highway 71 at Sioux Narrows will be restricted to vehicles under 15 tonnes until at least January came as unwelcome news—particularly to those in the forestry industry.
The bridge had been restricted to one lane since March.
Paul Stuckless, manager and part-owner of Devlin Timber Co. in Kenora, said the restrictions will pose a significant burden on his company because of the location of its current cutting operations.
“This is having immediate repercussions for us,” Stuckless said from his office in Kenora. “Right now, we’re cutting around Nestor Falls and Cameron Lake, which are just south of the bridge.”
Now, instead of hauling the logs a short 110 km to Kenora, his trucks must go down Highway 71 to Highway 11, east to Highway 502, north to Dryden, and then west on Highway 17 to Kenora—a distance of more than 500 km.
“It will add 20-25 percent to our wood costs,” Stuckless predicted. “It’s a real dilemma for us, that’s for sure.”
Stuckless employs 35 people in the mill as well as an additional eight-10 loggers, and he’s concerned he may not be able to keep them all on until the work on a replacement bridge is complete unless he can find alternative sources of wood.
Furthermore, he’s skeptical about the ministry’s timeline for completion.
“They said it will be ready by January, but I think it will be more like February or March,” he claimed.
Stuckless explained his pessimism by pointing out the difficulty involved in building the new bridge.
“It’s a 30-metre span and I’ve heard there are only two companies in Canada that can do it, so unless they contract it out, we could be stuck for a while,” he remarked.
In the meantime, he’s trying to find wood on the north side of the bridge to keep his mill running.
Stuckless said he was particularly disappointed the ministry didn’t anticipate the problem and plan ahead, since, according to him, it had plenty of time.
“They knew about this for two years,” he charged. “Once it was down to one lane, they should have done something.”
Apparently, the ministry did.
Bob Nichols, the MTO media rep, said the ministry has been monitoring the situation for several years and already was working on replacing it when tests showed it was unsafe for heavy traffic.
“We did become aware of some bridge deterioration last year,” Nichols said from his Toronto office.
“In the fall, we restricted it to single-lane use and began to monitor it on a monthly basis,” he noted. “At the same time, we began the planning and approvals process for rehabilitating or replacing the bridge.
“It was expected to continue to perform well for several years, but in March, continued deterioration was noticed and we increased the monitoring to twice a month.
“Early last month [September], the bridge showed sudden, unexpected change and the replacement plans were accelerated,” he added.
Other district businesses also are feeling the pinch, but to lesser degrees.
Dale Kaemingh, president of Manitou Forest Products in Barwick, said the loss of the bridge won’t affect his supply of raw materials significantly, but it will increase the shipping costs of his finished products.
He said 25 percent of his product (mouldings, flooring, and panelling) goes to Winnipeg and since there are length and weight restrictions on trucks going through Minnesota, he will have to send his products in smaller lots.
But since half of his product goes to the States anyway, he feels he can ride it out.
“It could be worse,” Kaemingh reasoned. “It will definitely drive the price up, but as long as it’s up by January, we should be OK.”
He acknowledged, however, it could increase his freight costs by as much as 50 percent for orders going north. “It will affect our business in Kenora, for sure,” he said.
In Fort Frances, the Abitibi-Consolidated mill will feel some effect, but according to the mill’s general manager, the situation is manageable.
“For the most part, the impact on the Fort Frances plant will be on the wood side,” said John Harrison. “We get about 25 percent of our wood from north of the Sioux Narrows bridge, but most of it is south of there and east of town.
“Our chemicals and other raw materials come from other sources and their supply won’t be affected,” he added.
Harrison said the closure ordinarily would have a greater impact on the mill in Kenora but since it is currently shut down anyway, the effects there should be negligible.
Fort Frances Times
Local News from Across the Rainy River District
