'Timberrrr' echoes less often in the West
— -- The nation's housing slump is dealing a devastating blow to Western states dependent on the forest and wood products industry.
"We're in the midst of the deepest downturn in the history of the timber industry," said Butch Bernhardt, of the Western Wood Products Association.
Bernhardt said the association figures, due to be released next week, will show the decline is even worse than predicted in its fall report.
"It was ugly enough, but now it's very, very ugly," he said.
Sawmills across the region are eliminating shifts, curtailing operations and even shutting down, said Ray Wilkeson of the Oregon Forest Industries Council.
"It's just impossible right now to even move any lumber products. The markets have almost just seized up," Wilkeson said.
The economic impact is rippling through logging communities, affecting truckers, suppliers, even restaurants, Bernhardt said.
Last year, lumber production at Western sawmills fell for the second straight year, to the lowest annual volume in more than a decade, he said. Mills in 12 Western states produced 16.3 billion board feet of lumber in 2007, down 9.3% from 2006, the association reported. A board foot is equal to 144 cubic inches of wood, or a piece one-foot long by one-foot wide by one-inch thick.
The association expects production to fall to 13.4 billion in 2008 and 11.8 billion in 2009, Bernhardt said.
Prices are down, also, to near-historic lows, he said. The price of Douglas fir, the predominant species in the West, dropped from $404 to $250 per 1,000 board feet between 2005 and October 2008, he said.
The timber market is always cyclical, Wilkeson said. "But this is the worst we've ever seen," he said.
Oregon employment in forest industries has fallen by about 21% over the past two years, from 33,000 to 26,200, said David Cooke, an Oregon Employment Department economist.
Washington, California and Idaho follow Oregon on the list of lumber-producing states, according to the Western Wood Products Association.
