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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Rarity planned: new sawmill

Associated Press

SEATTLE — In the Seattle metropolitan area — as in most Western cities — any talk of new jobs these days usually centers around the so-called New Economy: computers, biotechnology, the service industry and the like.

So it came as a surprise when Sierra Pacific Industries, a privately held company out of Redding, Calif., unveiled a proposal this week to build something that’s become a rarity around here: a new sawmill.

“Well, that’s a switch,” said regional economist Dick Conway.

Like many in the area, Conway has become more used to hearing about sawmills closing, not opening.

In 1987, the peak year for Western lumber production, there were 702 sawmills operating in the 12 Western states, according to the Western Wood Products Association, a trade group. By 2003, just 242 mills were in business, after a steady decline precipitated by strict restrictions in timber harvests.

Those restrictions haven’t been significantly loosened, Ed Bond, a spokesman for Sierra Pacific Industries, said Thursday. But as demand for wood products has continued to grow throughout the country, he said a combination of new technology, a willing work force and enough available timber means that it makes sense to build a new sawmill in Western Washington.

Nevertheless, the proposal was so unexpected that even Eric Russell, director of properties and development for the Port of Everett, was surprised when Sierra Pacific got in touch with his office about building a sawmill in the city 20 miles north of Seattle.

“It’s a little retro,” he said with a chuckle.

The new mill is expected to be completed in 2007 and will cost between $60 million and $100 million. It would be built where an older sawmill once stood.

After that mill closed in the mid-1980s, Russell said the land saw little use for about a decade, until the port bought it, did some environmental clean-up work and put it back on the market.

Like much of Washington state, Everett was once heavily dependent on the timber industry, with the city’s founders reserving much of the city’s prime waterfront for shingle mills, lumber mills and shipping wood products throughout the West Coast. Today, phone directories list only three mills in town.

These days, Everett is best known as the home of Boeing’s enormous plant to assemble the 747 and other jumbo jets, and as a Navy home port for an aircraft carrier task force. Surrounding Snohomish County is a growing bedroom community for Everett and Seattle, Conway said, with lumber barely registering on the list of economic drivers.

Bond stressed that this won’t be your grandfather’s smoky, groaning sawmill. He said the proposed building would be technologically advanced and more environmentally friendly than its predecessors. About 200 employees would work the mill, many doing highly skilled jobs that average around $18 an hour, with full benefits.

“Much of the real hard physical labor that was typical in the older mills is gone,” Bond said.

The mill will produce dimensional lumber for housing and commercial construction, he said.

The new mill would also be designed to process the smaller, farmed trees that are more commonly harvested in this area these days. Many older mills were built to handle the bigger trees that once carpeted the Puget Sound area.

Despite plans for the new mill, no one expects a general resurgence in the old economy timber industry. Sierra Pacific, which operates 18 plants in California, built a new sawmill in Aberdeen, Wash., several years ago, but Bond said it has no plans to expand further.

Butch Bernhardt, director of information services for the Portland, Ore.-based Western Wood Products Association, said he’s seen several older mills undergo major renovations in recent years, allowing them to better compete against newer operations.