MeadWestvaco Sets "Outage' For March 7   The Covington mill will begin a planned 10-day outage on March 7. This will not be a full-mill outage. It is primarily an outage for No. 1 Recovery Boiler, although some work will be done in the Fiberline and on all three paper machines at various times. The boiler is planned to start back up on the morning of March 17 and there will be several hours of noise from steam blows during the startup process. While work is being performed on the boiler, other pieces of equipment will be shut down and brought back online at different intervals for maintenance. While not planned, there is a possibility that steam pop-offs could occur as equipment is shutdown and brought back online. On March 10, the NCG system will be taken down for a 12-hour outage and this could cause some odor to be noticeable in the area. The company will work to minimize noise / odor to the community during this outage. With the exception of March 17, if you hear excessive noise between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. that lasts more than an hour, please contact Public Affairs at 969-5569. If you hear excessive noise lasting over an hour between 5 p.m. and 8 a.m., please contact the No. 1 Watchbox at 969-5416. Wood consumption will continue during the outage, but will be lower than normal. There will be a larger than normal number of contractor employees working in the mill during the outage. Please be aware of the extra traffic around the mill, the MWV parking lots, and entrance / exit gates during the outage period, especially around 5 to 6 a.m. and 5 to 6 p.m.

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