Potlatch Studies Mill Plan

The Potlatch Corp. is considering building a small-dimension sawmill near Bovill, Idaho.

The mill would produce lumber out of logs culled from the company’s pre-commercial thinning operations.

“You can make high-quality lumber out of a log we wouldn’t have touched 10 to 15 years ago,” said Penn Siegel, Potlatch chairman and CEO.

The new mill isn’t a certainty, though it is “under strong consideration,” Siegel said.

The earliest a decision could come is December, when Potlatch’s board approves a budget for the next year.

If a mill is built, Bovill is the most likely site, Siegel said. Bovill, population 300, is about 35 miles northeast of Moscow.

Potlatch already operates an office there. The company has proposed filling in 9 acres of wetlands along the Potlatch River for the new mill site, according to a federal permit application. New wetlands would be created to replace them.

The idea for the mill first surfaced about three years ago, Siegel said. Until recently, however, most of the company’s capital budget was dedicated to upgrading a pulp mill in Minnesota.

The mill would help the company recover value from its precommercial thinning operations.

Potlatch owns 670,000 acres of corporate timberland in North Idaho. To maximize growth, the stands are thinned when the trees are 25 to 40 years old.

In the past, the culled trees were sometimes turned into chips. Better technology now makes it possible to produce lumber from the same trees.

Siegel envisions a mill processing logs with a small-end diameter of 3-1/2 inches or greater.

“Technology gets more sophisticated all the time,” said Paul Ehinger, a forest products consultant in Eugene, Ore. Twenty years ago, “people used to think that 8 inches was the smallest they could handle.”

Several other such mills exist in the region, Ehinger said..

Vaagen Brothers Lumber Co. operates a small-dimension lumber mill in Colville, Wash. Crown Pacific rebuilt its Bonners Ferry mill two years ago to accommodate smaller logs. Riley Creek Lumber is working with the Coeur d’Alene Tribe to open a small-log sawmill in Plummer, Idaho.

If the Potlatch mill is built, it would produce 60 million to 100 million board feet annually, Siegel said.

In comparison, 346 Potlatch employees in St. Maries produce 130 million square feet of plywood annually and 90 million board feet of lumber.