Company says closed Oregon mill won't be revived
DALLAS, Ore. (AP) — A former Weyerhaeuser sawmill in a county that a state economist calls a "poster child" for the decline of the wood products industry is being dismantled, extinguishing faint hopes that somebody would revive it.
Talks with several groups interested in running a mill didn't result in a deal to reopen the plant closed in 2009 in the Polk County seat Dallas, the Salem Statesman Journal reported.
"We didn't get any traction with that, and I guess it's not a huge surprise," said Richard Wayper, vice president of marketing with Northwest Demolition and Dismantling.
The company bought the 66-acre site at an August auction for about $1.4 million. It has hired an auctioneer to take bids on equipment until Christmas and expects that by the first quarter most of it will be removed.
It plans to tear down some of the structures but hopes to find commercial or industrial users for structures in better condition.
A decade ago, about 34,000 Oregonians statewide worked in wood products manufacturing plants. That has shrunk by more than 40 percent, to about 19,840.
Pat O' Connor, a state regional economist, said Polk County had 1,500 mill jobs in the 1970s, dropping to 400 by 2001 and now to fewer than 60.
Wages have taken a hit as well, dropping from an inflation-adjusted average of $65,000 a year in the 1970s to about $36,450 now, O'Connor said.
Restrictions to protect endangered species have placed large tracts of federal timber lands off limits to loggers.
O'Connor said factory automation might have played a larger part in job losses than rules to save spotted owls and marbled murrelets. A mill in Lebanon, for example, now produces the same amount of lumber with 140 fewer workers, he said.
Jim Geisinger, executive vice president of Associated Oregon Loggers in Salem, said blaming job losses on automation is a "red herring."
"Without the timber supply, we can't sustain any jobs," Geisinger said.
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Information from: Statesman Journal, http://www.statesmanjournal.com
Copyright 2012 The Associated Press
Now the endangered species are loggers and mill hands.
"Restrictions to protect endangered species have placed large tracts of federal timber lands off limits to loggers." Irrelevant. Most of our lumber comes from log farms. Very few operating mills can handle large logs any more. Nice uniform cropped logs is what they can handle.
This is what the Democrats Blumenauer and Kitzhaber need to concentrate on, not Nike! Get our jobs back and stop the posturing about regrets and consolation to victims of shootings that might have occurred anyway regardless of whatever political hogwash and bilge you promote!
"O'Connor said factory automation might have played a larger part in job losses than rules to save spotted owls and marbled murrelets. A mill in Lebanon, for example, now produces the same amount of lumber with 140 fewer workers, he said."
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Everybody just ignore that and get onto the liberal/spotted owl bashing. It has nothing to do with the companies who sent the timber offshore to be cut. We're not outsourcing jobs. Nobody's sending jobs to other countries. That's not a problem all over America. Forget about that. It has nothing to do with automation our outsourcing just like all industries face. It's not about the unions, or the lack thereof. It's All About The Treehuggers.
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Loggers and fishermen in Astoria are squared away enough to have a brawl in the street over who gets paid better, while their kids on the football team are drinking and getting stoned so, obviously times are tough.
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The rest of us have had to close our businesses or abandon our careers, retrain, learn a new trade, change with the times, evolve and adapt. That's what the rest of America has to do, unless you're part of a union, or you work in the logging industry, where they're entitled to do the same job forever and if not, it's All About the Treehuggers.
They can blame the demise of the lumber industry on many things, but the main reason for it's demise was the spotted owl. Â The bottom feeders called environmentalists, who pushed our worthless politicians into all but outlawing logging, don't care about jobs or industry, only about returning to the 19th century. Â I just wish, for the sake of this country, that all of them would crawl back into the hole they crawled out of and stay there. Â We would be much better off if they did.
Everybody listen to the political rhetoric and ignore this part:
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"O'Connor said factory automation might have played a larger part in job losses than rules to save spotted owls and marbled murrelets. A mill in Lebanon, for example, now produces the same amount of lumber with 140 fewer workers, he said."
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Ignore that part. Keep ignoring it. You're still ignoring it, right? Okay, as long as you're still ignoring that, we can blame it on the spotted owl.
 @Playanekes I doubt you have ever built anything that involves selecting lumber. Go to any Home Depot, and look through their selection of milled lumber done by "Automated" mills. Good luck finding a decent 2 X 4.
 The best machine there is is still a Human Being.
We don't need any wood products jobs here. We have to take care of a company making shoes in China first.
"A mill in Lebanon, for example, now produces the same amount of lumber with 140 fewer workers, he said."
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Getting away from the unions is the goal of most businesses. To make that happen they go to automation in industries that are conducive to that environment. I remember when the very liberal Michael Powell of Powell book stores was fighting those who wanted to organize a union.
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During the big logging days of the 70's and 80's there were lots of strikes and mill owners were working hard to automate as many operations as they could. Automation combined with environmental issues killed the industry and took a once thriving Oregon economy to a constant struggle year to year.
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