The Shadow
The Covington WestRock mill began a planned 25-day maintenance outage the morning of Friday, Oct. 2.
Work will be done in the Woodyard from Oct. 13 to 21; Bleach Room and Unbleached Pulp Mill, Oct. 17-27; Power, Oct. 2-23; and Recovery from Oct. 17 through 28.
The paper machines will be down at various times throughout the outage.
Recovery will shut down the No. 2 Recovery Boiler, the lime kiln and an evaporator at 7 a.m. on Oct. 17.
There may be a short period of steam blows causing noise during the shutdown and possibly some odor noticeable in the area that morning.
The waste heat evaporator will be shut down on Oct. 20 at 7 a.m. that could cause some odor and noise until Oct. 21 at 7 a.m. when it is brought back up.
On Oct. 27, the No. 2 Recovery Unit will start up around 7 a.m. and steam blows will be loud during this time.
“We will work to minimize noise/odor to the community during this outage. While work is being performed, equipment will be shut down and brought back online at different intervals for maintenance,” said Rebecca Johnson, WestRock communications manager.
“There is a possibility that steam pop-offs could occur as equipment is shut down and brought back online.”
Anyone with concerns should contact WestRock Public Affairs at 969-5569. If you do not get an answer, please leave a message.
There will be a number of contractor employees working in the mill during the outage.
At the peak of the outage, there will be approximately 450 contract employees working in the mill.
“Please be aware of extra traffic around the mill, the WestRock parking lots, and entrance/exit gates during the outage period, especially around 5 to 7 a.m. and 5 to 7 p.m.,” Johnson said.
