Daines calls for 1,000 new timber jobs

One thousand more jobs. That’s what Sen. Steve Daines hopes to bring to Montana through timber and legal reforms in the coming year.

Daines presented his goal at a roundtable discussion last week with 15 representatives of the timber industry, local government and conservation community. The meeting was held at the F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber offices in Columbia Falls.

The new jobs would come from increasing the state’s timber harvest by 100 million board feet, the freshman Republican senator said.

“There’s a great opportunity to pass meaningful timber reform this year,” Daines said.

The chemistry of Congress favors Montana with Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke in the Republican-controlled House. Along with Daines and Democratic Sen. Jon Tester in the Senate, the effort has to be bipartisan, Daines said.

“It will take the entire Montana delegation being on the same page,” he said.

Daines said he’d like to see legislation that increases the timber harvest through collaborative efforts with local stakeholders, including mill owners, national forest users and even wilderness advocates.

In an e-mail to the Hungry Horse News, Tester said he was willing to work with his fellow Montana senator.

“I appreciate Sen. Daines working on this issue. As Montana continues to face milder winters, the need to responsibly manage our forests and reduce wildfire threats becomes even more urgent,” Tester said. “Any forest management bill must start from the ground up and have input from conservationists, the timber industry, sportsmen and women, and impacted local communities. By working together, we can better manage our forests and preserve our public lands for future generations.”

The idea of conservationists and loggers working together would have been unthinkable a decade ago, but now the two seem willing to work together, as they discover that they both rely on the same landscape for their living.

“We’ve got to get away from pitting wilderness against management,” Lincoln County Commissioner Mark Peck said. “I don’t think wilderness is the enemy.”

Wilderness Society state director Scott Brennan said his group learned that working with the timber industry can be mutually beneficial. Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, for example, blended mandated harvest targets with new wilderness designations, he said.

“We realized neither of us were getting what we wanted from our national forests,” Brennan said.

Daines said he wants a more comprehensive piece of legislation than Tester’s bill — one that encompasses all 10 of Montana’s national forests. Lawsuits, however, are a problem.

“The enemy is the serial litigation that’s allowed to go on,” Peck said.

Lincoln County has 2.2 million acres of national forest land yet no working sawmill, he said.

Daines said one solution is to reform the Equal Access to Justice Act by requiring groups who want to challenge a timber sale on national forest land to post a bond.

Mill employees warned that warm weather has caused an early spring breakup, which will prevent access to the woods and make the log supply even tighter. Loggers will need to take three to four months off until the ground dries.

Loren Rose, chief operating officer for Pyramid Lumber in Seeley Lake, said his mill is already looking at layoffs in early March because of the tight log supply. Pyramid could use 20 million more board feet annually, he said.

Stoltze general manager Chuck Roady said his mill is running at about 70 percent and could use an additional 15 million board feet

Plum Creek vice president Tom Ray said the company was importing logs from Canada. Plum Creek’s Evergreen mill is running one shift and uses about 22 million board feet a year. Adding two shifts would require an additional 40 million board feet.

Stoltze mill worker Jeff Mills said timber jobs are important to the community and the uncertainty of the timber supply is difficult.

“There’s not a lot of opportunity for people who don’t have massive degrees behind their names,” he said.

A potentially key player in the future timber supply is well known in the conservation community. Last year, the Nature Conservancy sold 11.8 million board feet of timber to western Montana mills. The nonprofit owns about 165,000 acres, primarily in the Swan Valley, that it acquired from Plum Creek in recent years.

Last year, the Nature Conservancy paid $4.35 million to logging contractors and $432,611 to foresters, said Mary Hollow, the organization’s government relations director. The logging operations alone provided about 30 jobs.

The Nature Conservancy bought the lands to preserve them from development and for their conservation values, but it also promotes sustainable land uses like forest management. It is now the second largest landowner in Western Montana.

But timber harvest on federal lands has lagged behind. At its peak, statewide harvest on federal lands was about 624 million board feet. By 2013, it was down to 113 million.

“This is a problem that went further than it needed to go,” former Montana Secretary of State Bob Brown said. He called the issue “ripe for compromise.”

One thousand more jobs. That’s what Sen. Steve Daines hopes to bring to Montana through timber and legal reforms in the coming year.

Daines presented his goal at a roundtable discussion last week with 15 representatives of the timber industry, local government and conservation community. The meeting was held at the F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber offices in Columbia Falls.

The new jobs would come from increasing the state’s timber harvest by 100 million board feet, the freshman Republican senator said.

“There’s a great opportunity to pass meaningful timber reform this year,” Daines said.

The chemistry of Congress favors Montana with Republican Rep. Ryan Zinke in the Republican-controlled House. Along with Daines and Democratic Sen. Jon Tester in the Senate, the effort has to be bipartisan, Daines said.

“It will take the entire Montana delegation being on the same page,” he said.

Daines said he’d like to see legislation that increases the timber harvest through collaborative efforts with local stakeholders, including mill owners, national forest users and even wilderness advocates.

In an e-mail to the Hungry Horse News, Tester said he was willing to work with his fellow Montana senator.

“I appreciate Sen. Daines working on this issue. As Montana continues to face milder winters, the need to responsibly manage our forests and reduce wildfire threats becomes even more urgent,” Tester said. “Any forest management bill must start from the ground up and have input from conservationists, the timber industry, sportsmen and women, and impacted local communities. By working together, we can better manage our forests and preserve our public lands for future generations.”

The idea of conservationists and loggers working together would have been unthinkable a decade ago, but now the two seem willing to work together, as they discover that they both rely on the same landscape for their living.

“We’ve got to get away from pitting wilderness against management,” Lincoln County Commissioner Mark Peck said. “I don’t think wilderness is the enemy.”

Wilderness Society state director Scott Brennan said his group learned that working with the timber industry can be mutually beneficial. Tester’s Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, for example, blended mandated harvest targets with new wilderness designations, he said.

“We realized neither of us were getting what we wanted from our national forests,” Brennan said.

Daines said he wants a more comprehensive piece of legislation than Tester’s bill — one that encompasses all 10 of Montana’s national forests. Lawsuits, however, are a problem.

“The enemy is the serial litigation that’s allowed to go on,” Peck said.

Lincoln County has 2.2 million acres of national forest land yet no working sawmill, he said.

Daines said one solution is to reform the Equal Access to Justice Act by requiring groups who want to challenge a timber sale on national forest land to post a bond.

Mill employees warned that warm weather has caused an early spring breakup, which will prevent access to the woods and make the log supply even tighter. Loggers will need to take three to four months off until the ground dries.

Loren Rose, chief operating officer for Pyramid Lumber in Seeley Lake, said his mill is already looking at layoffs in early March because of the tight log supply. Pyramid could use 20 million more board feet annually, he said.

Stoltze general manager Chuck Roady said his mill is running at about 70 percent and could use an additional 15 million board feet

Plum Creek vice president Tom Ray said the company was importing logs from Canada. Plum Creek’s Evergreen mill is running one shift and uses about 22 million board feet a year. Adding two shifts would require an additional 40 million board feet.

Stoltze mill worker Jeff Mills said timber jobs are important to the community and the uncertainty of the timber supply is difficult.

“There’s not a lot of opportunity for people who don’t have massive degrees behind their names,” he said.

A potentially key player in the future timber supply is well known in the conservation community. Last year, the Nature Conservancy sold 11.8 million board feet of timber to western Montana mills. The nonprofit owns about 165,000 acres, primarily in the Swan Valley, that it acquired from Plum Creek in recent years.

Last year, the Nature Conservancy paid $4.35 million to logging contractors and $432,611 to foresters, said Mary Hollow, the organization’s government relations director. The logging operations alone provided about 30 jobs.

The Nature Conservancy bought the lands to preserve them from development and for their conservation values, but it also promotes sustainable land uses like forest management. It is now the second largest landowner in Western Montana.

But timber harvest on federal lands has lagged behind. At its peak, statewide harvest on federal lands was about 624 million board feet. By 2013, it was down to 113 million.

“This is a problem that went further than it needed to go,” former Montana Secretary of State Bob Brown said. He called the issue “ripe for compromise.”