Downsizing Takes On New Meaning For Timber

Lying in Duane Vaagen’s lumber yard is a pile of trees, some so scrawny it’s hard to imagine them holding enough wood for a couple of 2-by-4s.

Before big logs became too scarce and expensive, before Canadians started dumping cheap lumber in the U.S., these small logs would have remained standing or burned in slash piles.

Today, Vaagen’s mill can glean a few framing timbers from the tiny trees, thanks to modern mill equipment. That could be the reason that his Vaagen Bros. Lumber Co. survives.

Rimmed by fertile forestland that stretches to the Canadian border, Colville has a strong timber history. The latest chapters have not been cheerful.

Small, family-owned mills such as Chopot Lumber Co. in Colville posted “No Trespassing” signs and closed shop in 1995.

A combination of low lumber prices and a scarcity of low-priced timber forced Vaagen Bros. to close one of its big mills, cut a shift at another and consider federal loans to keep its flagship sawmill going.

Don Lopes saw it coming. After working years at Vaagen’s Ione mill, he paid off his trucks, knocked down his house payment, and prepared for the worst.

The worst came in 1995, when Vaagen closed the Ione sawmill, whose equipment is headed to China to process big trees there.

Lopes now makes the 40-mile one-way commute to Colville from his Ione home to continue working at Vaagen’s big mill.

“I love it here - I wasn’t going to leave,” said Lopes, who has four children. “I don’t get to see enough of my family, and that’s what bothers me the most.”

Vaagen cut a whole shift at its Republic sawmill in late 1994. The company contemplated a Chrysler-style loan package backed by the government to help keep its Colville operation solvent, but later decided to go on its own.

About 170 feet above the Vaagen log yard in Colville, Doug Eslick represents the future of lumber jobs in the region. He runs the huge new crane that scoops truckloads of logs from trucks and neatly separates and stacks them, doing the job that dozens of men and large loaders used to do.

From the machine’s cabin, Eslick deftly moves the crane’s jaws while it moves back and forth on rails.

Eslick found himself in the sawmills right out of high school and wouldn’t want to give it up. Now with two young kids, he hopes Vaagen can hold on.

Modernization, industry observers agree, is the key to long-term operation. But thinner sawblades, often guided by lasers, are costly investments.

Large timber companies’ reluctance to make those million-dollar commitments, which may or may not pay off as lumber prices fluctuate, is the real root of industry downsizing, according to some labor advocates.

Even if the companies had the money to invest in more efficient mills, they couldn’t find enough trees to keep them running consistently.

Back at Vaagen Bros., Duane Vaagen surveys his lumber yard and exchanges friendly nods with his workers.

“This has put a tremendous amount of stress on our company,” Vaagen said. “But we still have a future here.”

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo