LONGVIEW, Washington (From news reports) -- Work crews Monday (Aug. 17) started dismantling the giant "white liquor" storage tank that ruptured and killed 11 workers at the Nippon Dynawave Packaging mill on May 26. The work marks the first step toward restarting the Longview plant.

Nippon also said it will install temporary tanks to hold white liquor and black liquor so it can resume operations, a company spokesman told The Seattle Times.

The announcement is likely to quell community anxieties about the future of the mill, which employs about 500 workers.

Nippon Dynawave said Friday it expects the tank work "to take a matter of weeks," but it hasn't given an estimate for a full restart of shuttered mill, which makes pulp and packaging paper for food containers and other products.

Company documents filed Monday indicate the temporary tanks could be in use for up three months, The Times reported.

Black liquor is a by-product from the kraft paper making process and is sent through recovery boilers to reclaim chemicals. White liquor is made of sodium hydroxide and sodium sulfide and is used to cook and dissolve lignin from wood chips, separating the cellulose fibers needed to make paper pulp. Both are highly caustic.

The state Department of Labor & Industries continues to investigate the cause of the May 26 accident. By law the agency must issue issue a report within six months of the accident -- by late November in this case

The May 26 rupture and ensuing blast also injured eight workers and released 900,000 gallons of white liquor,. Most of the spill was contained on the mill site and treated at the mill's wastewater plant, according to a company report.

However, an estimated 160,000 gallons of white liquor were discharged through storm drains and into Longview diking district's Ditch 5, which straddles Industrial Way north of the plant site. It caused the deaths of thousands of fish, most of them non-native species.

Another 3,500 gallons reached the Columbia River through two discharge pipes, known as outfalls 001 and 002, on the west end of the plant site near Weyerhaeuser Co.'s truck parking area, according to the report.

Nippon is paying all employees full salaries at least through October 11.