Builders, Timber Reps Cite Worries Construction Needs More Skilled Workers; Beetle Infestation May Boost Forest Output

Despite Home Depots and WalMarts popping up like daisies on every street corner, the Idaho construction industry faces challenges in the coming year.

Times are even tougher for the timber industry, a legislative committee heard Friday.

Dean Haagenson, a contracting tycoon and self-proclaimed “farm boy” from Coeur d’Alene, told the panel that builders are “crying out for skilled crafts people and technicians.”

Construction, he said, has positions being filled by unskilled youth, the result of a lack of vocational training. Skilled workers aren’t sticking around. The average Idaho pay, Haagenson said, is just too low to keep the “best and the brightest.”

This was the message Haagenson delivered to a special legislative committee that is examining the state’s economy.

The committee, chaired by Rep. Hilde Kellogg, R-Post Falls, and Sen. Hal Bunderson, R-Meridian, listened to presentations by representatives from industries throughout the state. Haagenson, said Rep. Reed Hansen, R-Idaho Falls, “put lawmakers’ feet back on the floor.”

Haagenson predicts that growth in construction - a key North Idaho industry - will be flat. Which, he said, “is not all that bad as `flat’ is at a historically high level.”

The outlook is dimmer for the timber industry, but oddly, a beetle infestation that’s destroying North Idaho timber could end up boosting the industry.

That’s because the cure is harvesting dead trees and debris from infected areas.

Intermountain Forest Industry Association representatives Marc Brinkmeyer and Jane Gorsuch told lawmakers that the industry is in a slump, but there is hope.

1998 mill closures in Plummer, Horseshoe Bend and Colburn, along with iffy federal timber offerings, indicate an increased slump - Brinkmeyer predicts a 3-to-5 percent loss - for 1999.

But that percentage could change, Gorsuch said, thanks to the beetle infesting the Douglas firs in the Idaho Panhandle.

“It’s as bad as anthrax is to cows,” Gorsuch said of the beetle infestation.

The bark beetle has been almost an epidemic in the Idaho Panhandle National Forests since 1996. The Forest Service estimates 125,000 acres of infested timber in the Idaho Panhandle. If harvested, this timber could yield an estimated $34.7 million to Idaho counties.

“We’re shooting ourselves in the foot by not making money in harvesting and giving the returns to education,” said Rep. Cecil Ingram, R-Boise.