Nevada County Picayune and Gurdon Times Newspaper Archive

GP has shut down

Work was temporarily halted at Georgia Pacifics Gurdon wood products facility last week.

Melodie Ruse, a spokesperson with the Atlanta, Ga., based company confirmed Wednesday, July 18, that the Gurdon facility had begun a three day shut down that day at 7 a.m. due to a lack of logs with which to work. She said there is nothing to be alarmed about as the facility was scheduled to resume production by 7 a.m. Saturday. This gave time for the log supply to be replenished.

The lack of logs is blamed on recent rains that have created conditions in the woods in which it is near impossible to work.

During the shut down, Ruse said pretty much everybody is off.

Since there are always miscellaneous tasks that can be done when a mill is down, few employees will be out all three days, but most of the 600 plus employees will be affected to some extent, she said.

When asked whether the employees are paid during the down time, Ruse said thats between us and our employees.

During the three day period, some of those at the facility include those in the maintenance department. Ruse said maintenance employees are always on site and will be conducting routine inspections and repairs to equipment while it is down.

The Gurdon wood products facility, which manufactures plywood and lumber, changed ownership in April. It was previously owned by International Paper and had been for sale for several months. The Gurdon facility was one of five sold to GP from IP for $237 million.

The plant is the largest employer in Gurdon.