b"THE RIPPLE EFFECTIndustry leaders seek to mitigateimpact of unprecedented material shortagesBy Kelly ParkerAs waves of the COVID-19 pandemictime to do home improvements. That,allow increased tree cutting to meet continue to ripple across the world,coupled with the hot U.S. and Canadiandemand. Boom and bust doesnt work no sector has gone unaffected. On thehousing markets, caused demand toin the forestry industry. We used to have construction side, that has resulted inskyrocket so fast that the supply chaina higher allowable cut, but when the unprecedented materials shortages andhas never been able to keep up. mountain pine beetle migrated from spiking prices. Build Manitoba spoke withLiz Kovach, President of the WesternAlberta into B.C., there was a salvage several industry leaders to get a handleRetail Lumber Association, says thatoperation to protect those forests that on what is happening and what can beissues on the transportation side havetook out three million board feet of raw done to mitigate the impact. made the situation worse. Therematerial from circulation for a really Crazy. Thats how Star Buildingwas a lag with CN Raildue to unionlong time. If it werent for this current Materials VP (and WCA Board member)agreementsin getting their employeesunprecedented demand, wed be fine. Mark Kennedy describes the situation.back to work. There were also challengesOn top of that, the resin used in OSB The supply chain is non-existent, andon the trucking side; companies wereplywood is manufactured in Texas. demand is through the roof. When thereluctant to take on runs where thereWhen the winter storm hit, Kovach pandemic first hit, everything shut down,wasnt a backhaul ready.explains, the resin froze and took all but at the same time, the people whoKovach notes that some haveof their resin plants offline for about were sitting at home decided to use thequestioned why the government doesn'ta month. People who are ordering plywood now will not be getting delivery until September.m o c . W C M . w w w All of these factors have left suppliers scrambling. Weve got a fairly large project on the go on Highway 59 over the Red River Floodway, explains Ben High Voltage Robinson, Project Manager at M.D. Energy Steele Construction Ltd. For that Mechanical and Electrical project, we were looking for a fairly large Engineering order of form plywood, so large that a lot of our normal suppliers were very Our goal is to bring CREATIVITY and EXPERTISE for sustainable design andnervous about being able to deliver the energy innovation. quantity that we needed. We actually THANK YOU to our employees andhad suppliers that were so strained they clients for MCWs continued success. werent even able to quote us.24 BUILD MANITOBAwinnipegconstruction.ca"