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Ronda Roche holds a portrait of her late husband, Glenn Francis Roche, who died in an explosion at Lakeland Mills sawmill, at B.C. Legislature in Victoria, B.C., in March.CHAD HIPOLITO/The Globe and Mail

Almost three years after a sawdust-fuelled explosion destroyed a Prince George lumber mill, a replacement facility will start operations on Wednesday. For the 110 workers returning to the Lakeland Mills site with well-paid, full-time jobs, it is a moment to celebrate.

But the price of the new mill, with its state-of-the-art safety features, is that many members of the original crew will never return. Two men were killed in the blast and a number of those who were injured say they are having to fight for compensation and rehabilitation. Some of the workers are too emotionally and physically injured to return to the mill. And, there are 50 fewer jobs because the new mill is more efficient, capable of producing 200 million board feet of stud lumber each year on just two shifts per day.

The reopening is particularly difficult for Ronda Roche, whose husband died along with co-worker Alan Little when the mill exploded April 23, 2012. This coming Christmas will be her third without her husband, Glenn.

Earlier this year, the mill's owners cut Ms. Roche and her son off of medical insurance, saying their obligation to the family ended two years after her husband's death. She missed the notice when she moved, and now faces a bill to repay the past seven months of benefits.

"The owners have their super mill and will surely be even more highly profitable than before," Ms. Roche said Monday. "They can carry on business as usual in the place that killed my husband, took my son's father."

The B.C. lumber industry has been turned upside down by the events at Lakeland, and a similar sawdust explosion that killed Robert Luggi and Carl Charlie just months earlier at the Babine Forest Products mill in Burns Lake. Before those catastrophes, there was little awareness within the industry of the hazards of combustible sawdust.

The new Lakeland mill is designed to prevent sawdust accumulations – beams are installed on a 45-degree angle and operator booths run from the floor to the ceiling. Low-energy lighting is used to reduce possible ignition sources.

"It's a positive story that comes from a tragedy," said NDP Opposition Leader John Horgan, after touring the facility on Monday. "It is loaded with innovation, it is very impressive." He noted that for the city of Prince George, the reopening is a needed economic boost.

But a week ago, Mr. Horgan was on his feet in Question Period, hammering Premier Christy Clark over her government's treatment of the injured workers and the families of the four dead workers from both sawmills. Despite his positive impression of the new Lakeland mill, Mr. Horgan said a cloud hangs over the opening because of Ms. Clark's inaction. "She sat there like a stone without answering my questions."

The failures of the province's workplace safety regimes and the botched investigations that prevented the prosecution of management in both cases, remain unresolved. Changes have been promised at WorkSafe BC, and mill inspections have increased. Sawdust management persists as a challenge, however. Sixty per cent of the province's wood-pellet mills failed to pass sawdust safety inspections this year.

The families of the workers who were killed want a public inquiry, but the province says a coroner's inquest, to be held next spring in Prince George, will suffice.

In an interview, the Premier said she feels she has lived up to her personal commitment to the grieving families. She said her government ensured that the Babine Forest Products mill in Burns Lake, about 220 kilometres west of Prince George, reopened, and she maintains the injured workers have received adequate support.

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