lumber is heading for a new low

Timber's tumble continues

Published: July 15, 2008


Timber harvesting has become much less common in Baker County during the past 15 years.

By ED MERRIMAN

Baker City Herald

Timber harvests in 2007 fell to the lowest level in Oregon since the recession-driven record low in 2001, according to new report from the state Department of Forestry.

In Baker County and across Eastern Oregon, timber harvests declined as part of a 12-percent statewide drop from 4.33 billion board feet in 2004 to 3.80 billion board feet harvested in 2007.

"Rural communities in Eastern Oregon continue to lose raw materials for their 10 remaining sawmills as timber harvesting continues to become increasingly concentrated in the western part of the state," Gary Lettman, ODF forest economist, said in a press statement summarizing the 2007 Annual Timber Harvest Report released last week.

Historically, when log supplies were short in Northeastern Oregon, area mills brought in logs from Idaho and other areas, said Mike Billman, timber manager for Malheur Lumber Co. in John Day.

But with $4.55 a gallon fuel prices doubling log transportation costs in the past two years, Billman said it's no longer cost-effective to haul logs more than 200 miles.

At the same time, plummeting prices for logs is reducing supplies.

Billman said a log that sold for $500 last year is down to around $350 today, and the decline has prompted private forest owners to scale back cutting on their land.

"I think all of the mills have been short on wood," Billman said. "Obviously, it would be more cost-effective to supply the mills (in John Day) with logs from federal lands in Grant and Baker counties.

"Unfortunately, the feds don't put up enough timber sales to meet our needs, and the private sector is pretty much out of it because of the low log prices and high transportation costs," Billman said.

Baker County's last sawmill, owned by Ellingson Lumber Co., closed in 1996.

The ODF report shows timber harvests on federal lands in Oregon remained at historically low levels in 2007, even as logging on private lands slowed.

In fact, federal timber harvests accounted for less than 10 percent of the statewide timber cut, despite 2007 increases of 7.8 percent harvested from Bureau of Land Management lands and a 3.3 percent increase in timber cut on national forests, according to the ODF report.

Carla Monismith, timber sales officer for the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest in Baker City, said timber harvests in 2007 and over the past five years met targets set by Congress.

However, if mill operators need more federal timber to keep mills running this year and into the future, Monismith said they need to make sure that message gets delivered to Congress, which controls the Forest Service budget for processing timber sales.

Timber sales on the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest for 2007 of 29 million board feet was up slightly from 26 million board feet in 2006, but represents a small fraction of the 215 million board feet harvested in 1990.

Since then, appeals and lawsuits have prompted the Forest Service to stop cutting live trees larger than 21 inches in diameter on national forests east of the Cascades. As a result, the Wallowa-Whitman's timber sales total plunged to 53 million board feet in 1991, according to the ODF report and harvest graphs provided by Monismith.

From 1991 through 2005, timber harvests on the Wallowa-Whitman National Forests varied from lows of 15 to 20 million board between 2002 and 2005, to highs of 53 million board feet reported in 1991, 1995, 1996 and 1998.

A spike in logging on the Wallowa-Whitman of 100 million board feet in 1992 included 63 million board feet from salvage logging. That was the only year since 1991 that Wallowa-Whitman harvests topped 53 million board feet.

The Forest Service's nationwide timber sales budget rose slightly from 2006 to 2007, from about $210 million to nearly $240 million. But even the larger amount is less than half the agency's budgets from 10 years ago, Monismith said.

As for the Wallowa-Whitman, in the 1990s Congress budgeted $7 million for the forest's timber sales program.

"Now it's $2 million, and it's more expensive to produce timber sales than it used to be, due to all the environmental issues, litigation, etc," Monismith said.

The Wallowa-Whitman's target for the 2008 fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, is 26.5 million board feet.

From private forests across the state, the ODF report shows an 11-percent, or 344 million board feet, decrease in volume harvested from forests owned by timber companies.

The decline was much larger on non-industrial forests — 43 percent, from 422 million board feet in 2006 to 240 million board feet in 2007.

Eastern Oregon's share of timber harvests, from both private and public lands, has dipped from 31 percent of the state's total in 1991 to 11 percent in 2007.

For Eastern Oregon, the report shows a 97 million board feet harvest reduction by forest industry landowners, down nearly 23 percent from 2006 to 2007.

Lettman said some of the reduction in timber harvests on private lands in Eastern Oregon is due to a declining supply of marketable standing timber on private lands.

That, combined with the ongoing constraints on logging on public land, is putting financial pressure on Eastern Oregon's remaining lumber mills, he said.

Despite abundant inventory on overcrowded timber stands on federal lands, Lettman and Monismith said budget and personnel constraints, combined with litigation issues, continues to limit Eastern Oregon timber harvests on federal lands.

As a result, overall timber harvests across Eastern Oregon diminished in 2007 in all counties except Crook and Harney. Despite a 30-percent reduction in harvest volume from 2006, Klamath County continues to lead in logging east of the Cascades, with 107 million board feet cut in 2007, according to the ODF report.

In Baker County, meanwhile, timber harvests fell from just over 19 million board feet in 2006 to less than 14 million board feet in 2007.

For 30 years prior to 1991, Baker County timber harvests fluctuated between 50 million board feet to around 118 million board feet, with a spike of nearly 139 million board feet hit in 1972.

Logging totals in Baker County dropped below 40 million board feet in 1994 and continued on a downward trend, dropping below 20 million board feet in 2002, and again from 2005 through 2007, according to ODF records.

Lane County leads Oregon's counties in timber cutting, despite decreasing by 15 percent to 504 million board feet in 2007. Douglas County was second with 479 million board feet.

Lettman said that despite the declines in logging across the state, Oregon mills actually imported less timber in 2007 due in part to higher transportation costs and the nationwide decline in housing starts.

Commercial construction, large transportation projects, a relatively strong demand for plywood and an upturn in exports related to the weak dollar helped Oregon's timber industry last year, he said.