http://www.populist.com/03.16.olsen.html

Cruel Twists Seize Timber Country
By Lance Olsen
Felled by a one-two punch, Crown Pacific is in bankruptcy court. The
Portland-based timber firm was brought down by debt and falling prices for the
trees on its land. According to the Oregon press, Crown's debt became
"crushing" when the market value of its timber assets fell. As of early July,
investors had lost 96% of the money they'd put into the company, and its
employees face an uncertain future.

Why? Crown Pacific owns its land and the trees growing on it. Crown was crushed
when the value of its trees fell so far that it could not sell them for enough
money to meet its obligations to its creditors. Oregon press reports indicate
that, throughout the Pacific Northwest, timber companies that own their land
and trees are in trouble because of oversupply and low prices.

Oversupply and low prices are actually two sides of one problem. When there is
a glut of timber on the market, prices fall. Investment portfolios and jobs
fall next.

But why has the market value of trees fallen hard enough to drive Crown Pacific
into bankruptcy? Federal timber policy handed down from Washington is part of
the problem, and the US Forest Service has known it at least since 2001. In an
article for Forest Ecology and Management, Forest Service experts Lisa K. Crone
and Richard W. Haynes reported that, "In eastern Oregon and Washington, each
increase of 100 million board feet of federal harvest reduces stumpage prices
25% for private landowners."

One cruel twist here is that Crown's ownership of its timber qualifies it for
the label of capitalism, wherein ownership of the means of production is basic.
When federal timber sales endanger such companies, they put the government in a
strangely anti-capitalist mode of operation. But that's not the only cruel
twist in timber country today.

Crone and Haynes mentioned that it is not only publicly traded timber companies
that take hits. For example, Indian reservations also face dropping value of
their timber assets when federal sales help flood the market with wood. The two
Forest Service experts cautioned that the agency should consider economic
justice when planning to sell more trees.

But a third cruel twist comes from within the timber industry itself. By and
large, the industry and its allies in Washington claim that federal timber
sales are too little, and too slow in coming. For the past quarter century,
they have lobbied hard to curb appeals by environmental groups who say that the
government's timber sales are too many and too quick to proceed without careful
analysis of their consequences.

In northwest Montana, for example, an appeal of Forest Service timber sales by
the Missoula-based Ecology Center and the Spokane, Wash.-based Lands Council
put the damper on Kootenai National Forest timber sales. After reviewing the
environmentalists' appeal, federal district judge Don Molloy found that the
government had neither done the required accounting for its own timber assets
nor an accounting of the impact that its timber sales would have on wild
species including Canada lynx, wolverines, flammulated owls and goshawks.

Molloy ordered the government to go do its legally required homework before
proceeding with its sales. The Montana-based timber industry immediately warned
of trouble for companies and jobs.

The Montana press immediately quoted Jim Hurst, co-owner of Owens and Hurst
Lumber Co. in Eureka, Mont., as saying, "It's a black day in Eureka." A
headline in the July 3 edition of the Missoula, Mont., daily, the Missoulian,
stressed that theme in declaring "Ruling cripples Eureka." According to the
Missoulian, the Owens and Hurst firm was worried that its employees would lose
their jobs if a lack of logs from federal timber sales forced the company to
shut down.

The Forest Service defended its sales, and slammed environmentalists‚
appeals. Kootenai National Forest supervisor Bob Castaneda told the Missoulian
that he was "very concerned about the delay" and the "potential impact of this
ruling on the economy of northwest Montana."

Capitol Hill has been issuing warnings of its own. In a news release of July
23, the House Agriculture Committee said that, ""The Forest Service has been
plagued by cumbersome bureaucratic processes, and delays caused by
environmental appeals and litigation."

The committee cited a timber industry spokesman who expressed the industry's
frustration that, faced with environmentalists' appeals, the Forest Service has
its hands tied. Crown Pacific, Indian reservations and other owners of
timberlands might wish the agency's hands were tied more effectively than they
are. And the cruelest twist in the tale is that a deep conflict within the
timber industry itself may be more profound than any conflict between the
industry and environmentalists.

Lance Olsen follows the globally interrelated circulation of money, logs and
water from his home office in Montana

Crown's not a good example. Crown Zellerbach has been repeatedly
leveraged for cash payouts to relieve debt brought on originally by
corporate raiders back in the '80s. CZ was a pawn in the savings and
loan scams. They've sold off their paper mills, lands, dams and
themselves. The name changes about every six or eight years it seems.
They cut their North west forest at 35 years of age - and have built
high speed mills to blow thousands of small logs per day past the
headsaws with a minimum of labor involved. Their current incarnation as
Crown Pacific has been claiming to be barely breaking even for years but
still hauls logs like they were worth something.

Somehow I doubt that the little bit of federal wood is having much
impact compared to cheap wood imports.

(mhagen) writes:
Crown's not a good example. Crown Zellerbach has been repeatedly
leveraged for cash payouts to relieve debt brought on originally by
corporate raiders back in the '80s. CZ was a pawn in the savings and
loan scams. They've sold off their paper mills, lands, dams and
themselves. The name changes about every six or eight years it seems.
They cut their North west forest at 35 years of age - and have built
high speed mills to blow thousands of small logs per day past the
headsaws with a minimum of labor involved. Their current incarnation as
Crown Pacific has been claiming to be barely breaking even for years but
still hauls logs like they were worth something.

Somehow I doubt that the little bit of federal wood is having much
impact compared to cheap wood imports.

That's what I wondered. If there have been any major federal timber
sales, I haven't heard about them. Rough and Ready Lumber in Cave
Junction closed this year because there haven't been enough logs coming
out of the Siskiyou National Forest to keep the last sawmill in the area
going. Meanwhile, of course, lumber imports are keeping log prices in
the cellar.

On the bright side, Roseburg Lumber has just announced plans to upgrade
their Dillard mill. When the upgrade is finished, it will have more
dimensional lumber capacity than any mill in the world. They are
installing high speed scanners and computerized saws that will sample
6000 log positions for maximum yield. Their output will be primarily
studs for the big box home store market. Roseburg Lumber bought out LP's
holdings in southern Oregon when LP moved operations back to the south.

Since Roseburg Lumber is a privately held corporation, their
profitability is nobody's business but their own, but they have closed a
plywood mill and a chipboard operation in the last year because of soft
market conditions. Competition from cheap imports is forcing them to
reposition themselves in the market.

--
http://home.teleport.com/~larryc

Meanwhile, prices on premium hardwood timber in the US Northeast are higher
than ever. The lesson to be learned is to grow premium wood by doing great
silviculture- and let those trees get big before cutting them.
***
Joe Zorzin
"What Liberal Media" by Erik Alterman
http://www.whatliberalmedia.com


"Larry Caldwell" wrote in message
.net...
(mhagen) writes:
Crown's not a good example. Crown Zellerbach has been repeatedly
leveraged for cash payouts to relieve debt brought on originally by
corporate raiders back in the '80s. CZ was a pawn in the savings and
loan scams. They've sold off their paper mills, lands, dams and
themselves. The name changes about every six or eight years it seems.
They cut their North west forest at 35 years of age - and have built
high speed mills to blow thousands of small logs per day past the
headsaws with a minimum of labor involved. Their current incarnation as
Crown Pacific has been claiming to be barely breaking even for years but
still hauls logs like they were worth something.

Somehow I doubt that the little bit of federal wood is having much
impact compared to cheap wood imports.

That's what I wondered. If there have been any major federal timber
sales, I haven't heard about them. Rough and Ready Lumber in Cave
Junction closed this year because there haven't been enough logs coming
out of the Siskiyou National Forest to keep the last sawmill in the area
going. Meanwhile, of course, lumber imports are keeping log prices in
the cellar.

On the bright side, Roseburg Lumber has just announced plans to upgrade
their Dillard mill. When the upgrade is finished, it will have more
dimensional lumber capacity than any mill in the world. They are
installing high speed scanners and computerized saws that will sample
6000 log positions for maximum yield. Their output will be primarily
studs for the big box home store market. Roseburg Lumber bought out LP's
holdings in southern Oregon when LP moved operations back to the south.

Since Roseburg Lumber is a privately held corporation, their
profitability is nobody's business but their own, but they have closed a
plywood mill and a chipboard operation in the last year because of soft
market conditions. Competition from cheap imports is forcing them to
reposition themselves in the market.

--
http://home.teleport.com/~larryc

Joe Zorzin wrote:
Meanwhile, prices on premium hardwood timber in the US Northeast are higher
than ever. The lesson to be learned is to grow premium wood by doing great
silviculture- and let those trees get big before cutting them.
***
Joe Zorzin
"What Liberal Media" by Erik Alterman
http://www.whatliberalmedia.com


"Larry Caldwell" wrote in message
.net...

(mhagen) writes:

Crown's not a good example. Crown Zellerbach has been repeatedly
leveraged for cash payouts to relieve debt brought on originally by
corporate raiders back in the '80s. CZ was a pawn in the savings and
loan scams. They've sold off their paper mills, lands, dams and
themselves. The name changes about every six or eight years it seems.
They cut their North west forest at 35 years of age - and have built
high speed mills to blow thousands of small logs per day past the
headsaws with a minimum of labor involved. Their current incarnation as
Crown Pacific has been claiming to be barely breaking even for years but
still hauls logs like they were worth something.

Somehow I doubt that the little bit of federal wood is having much
impact compared to cheap wood imports.

That's what I wondered. If there have been any major federal timber
sales, I haven't heard about them. Rough and Ready Lumber in Cave
Junction closed this year because there haven't been enough logs coming
out of the Siskiyou National Forest to keep the last sawmill in the area
going. Meanwhile, of course, lumber imports are keeping log prices in
the cellar.

On the bright side, Roseburg Lumber has just announced plans to upgrade
their Dillard mill. When the upgrade is finished, it will have more
dimensional lumber capacity than any mill in the world. They are
installing high speed scanners and computerized saws that will sample
6000 log positions for maximum yield. Their output will be primarily
studs for the big box home store market. Roseburg Lumber bought out LP's
holdings in southern Oregon when LP moved operations back to the south.

Since Roseburg Lumber is a privately held corporation, their
profitability is nobody's business but their own, but they have closed a
plywood mill and a chipboard operation in the last year because of soft
market conditions. Competition from cheap imports is forcing them to
reposition themselves in the market.

--
http://home.teleport.com/~larryc



You betcha. High end wood for boat building and repairs goes for rates
slightly under extortion. Wooden boat craftsmen are constantly looking
for high ring count red and yellow cedar, pacific yew, clear spruce and
fir. Most of em have wood stashed that they bought years ago.