CHEYENNE—Rep. John Eklund thought back a half century, to an era when commercial sawmills processing Wyoming timber abounded and logging was the Equality State’s third-largest industry.
“We should be able to get back to that,” the Cheyenne Republican said Tuesday morning in the Wyoming Capitol.
It’d be a monumental recovery.
Commercial logging in national forests around the country, including Wyoming, has fallen off dramatically from its heyday. Cut and sold timber has stagnated at a fraction of what it was from the 1950s through the 1980s for three decades running, U.S. Department of Agriculture data shows.
Eklund made the remarks during the Legislature’s annual “forest health briefing,” a gathering that convenes state and federal foresters with state lawmakers to discuss the status of Wyoming’s forests. There was talk of current events, like Wyoming’s largest wildfire year since 1988, but much of the discourse Tuesday revolved around the reeling state of the timber industry — and what the second Trump administration might be able to do about it.
Sen. Bob Ide, a Casper Republican, who has qualms with the very concept of federal land, asked the foresters in the room what they thought of Trump’s executive order dropped over the weekend intended to stimulate logging.
The order, titled “Immediate Expansion of American Timber Production,” streamlines permitting processes and outlines steps that can “move projects on the ground faster,” Wyoming State Forester Kelly Norris told Ide.
Among other steps, the order compels new Interior Secretary Doug Burgum and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins to identify timber-cutting goals within 90 days for Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service property. Within 180 days, Burgum and Rollins are also on the hook to develop new “categorical exclusions” to the National Environmental Policy Act that could enable logging projects without time-consuming reviews of the impacts.
Trump’s order isn’t the only prospective policy change afoot that could revitalize commercially cutting American forests. The “Fix Our Forests Act,” a measure from Rep. Bruce Westerman, R-Arkansas and co-sponsored by Wyoming Rep. Harriet Hageman, has passed the U.S. House of Representatives and moved to the U.S. Senate. The bill, proving divisive in big commercial timber country, would further expedite environmental reviews — and could potentially have immediate impacts in Wyoming.
“I’m optimistic that the Fix Our Forests Act is going to pass,” U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Regional Forester Troy Heithecker told lawmakers in attendance. “And we’re ready. We have projects lined up as soon as that bill passes.”
Later, Heithecker pointed toward the Shoshone National Forest’s Dunoir area, which he called a “high-risk fireshed,” as an example.
“If Fix Our Forests [Act] goes through, all those high-risk firesheds have a whole bunch of exemptions where we can streamline work,” he said. “And we have funding through the Wildfire Crisis Strategy … to help fuel reductions in that fireshed.”
Still, reviving Wyoming’s logging industry in a place like the Wind River basin faces big headwinds. Dubois’ timber mill has been closed for decades, and, out of necessity, the community has moved on economically.
“It is more challenging in that part of the state, because the infrastructure is already lost,” Norris, the state forester, told lawmakers.
Today, only two large commercial mills hang on in Wyoming: One in Saratoga, the other in Hulett. The farther geographically a timber-cutting project is from those mills, the tougher it is to pencil out.
Representatives for both Wyoming’s mills attended the Legislature’s forest health briefing on Tuesday.
“I think all sawmills in [Forest Service] Region 2 are at a crossroads, at the tipping point,” testified Jim Neiman, president and CEO of a company that operates mills in the Black Hills region. “We can’t be arguing about how many trees we’re going to cut. We need to focus right now [on]: ‘Do we want to retain industry in Region 2, or not?”
Neiman, who’s the cousin of the Legislature’s speaker of the House, said he believes the industry’s hit the bottom and that “emergency action” is needed to keep mills running. Wyoming, he told WyoFile, once housed 11 or 12 sawmills and even the Black Hills region alone had seven as recently as the late 1990s.
“Now we’re down to two, and they’re both running one shift,” he said. “Ponderosa [pine] has low value. You can’t survive on one shift. It’s got to run two shifts.”
Correction: This story has been updated to specify there are only two large commercial sawmills remaining in Wyoming. Additional smaller operations exist. -Eds.
Do we need to cut down more trees with climate change? Some people don’t believe that the climate is hotter, even when wyoming is drier and hotter. Stupid Donald Trump wants to log, log, log, drill, drill, drill. I say impeach, impeach.
Wildfires, beetle kill, drought, fossil fuel, and logging, climate change are killing our wildlife. We are passing the point of no return. All for Republicans greed for money .
Give foresters the power to manage federal land .
Not profitable for saw timber in most of wyoming for large scale operations. The easy timber is gone, the road cost for new sales ouweigh cutting with out subsidizing which is paid by taxpayers. New mills require a lot of money and time to set up. In areas that have roads most timber has been cut. Or protected for watershed, recreation and wildlife. Recreation industry in Wy. Is a bigger industry just under coal and oil extraction. Wy. Is also an important watershed for the colorado river. Not all forests in the nation should be managed for timber harvest. At best Wy forest are best suited for small mom and pop sawmills.
Mike hasn’t done his homework. There are more than 2 sawmills in Wyoming..There are 2 in Uinta County. South & Jones Sawmill in Evanston and the other is in Mountain View. called Blacks Forks Timber Prouducts…How many more did Mike leave out of his article????
Burn baby burn!!! Our unwritten national policy is to favor natural burning and bark beetle epidemics over logging -‘ a policy for which proponents of natural have voiced a lot of legitimacy. Witness the recovery in Yellowstone after the major fires. Some commentators feel we’ll be returning to logging management but that can only occur on a very modest scale due to the timber industry being demolished. The natural process is almost impossible to reverse at this point and we’ll have to continue enduring the western forest fires on the national forests. The downside of course is containing the fires on public land and preventing the spread of the natural fires onto adjacent private land, towns and ranches – witness the containment efforts above DuBois and Dayton this year. We will continue to spend hundreds of millions each year to prevent spread of fires on the national forest, wilderness areas and national parks. We are largely committed to this forest management policy and a little bit of increased logging won’t make much difference except in cases where trees are thinned in order to create defend able space next to towns. So no, it isn’t going to be log baby log – its going to continuation of natural forest management. So in our forests we will see burn scars and beetle kill and in Canada it will be clear cutting scars. Get used to the smoke America.
Does anyone realize that the real reason there are only two functional sawmills left in Wyoming is because the logging and milling industry in Wyoming is simply economically unfeasible for producing anything other than rough timber and chips for particle board ? It takes 125 years to grown back a cuttable pine in my corner of the State surrounding Cody.
Years ago when the SHoshone Forest put up a timber sale for bids, our local Cody Lumber mill and loggers were outbid by Sheridan WY and Hamilton MT mills. Those firms had to haul logs 250 miles to Sheridan ( north around the Big Horns) or nearly 500 miles to the upper Bitteroot Valley of Montana to their mills. Cody Lumber only had to haul 40 miles , but were strongly outbid. Wasn’t long afterwards that Cody Lumber ceased to exist. Seems like most of the northwest Wyoming mills are gone or severely downsized. Surely that is a teachable moment on Wyoming forest economics… ( I cannot speak directly to the situation in the Black Hills )
Hard to compete with soft pine from British Columbia and the American Southeast where trees grow back to cuttable size in 25 years. If you have never seen the extent of massive clearcutting in BC Canada, prepare to be shocked.
Anyone who tells you salvage logging and pine beetle remediation is economically sound is lying. The only reason they can persist is they are heavily subsidized sales. Thinning trees in the wildfire interface zones is perfectly fine, but can’t be done in bulk to the extent it would sustain whole log mills designed to produce commercial craft lumber. Wyoming’s semi-arid climate is not the lumberjack’s friend.
It is interesting reading all the arm chair loggers telling us that it’s not economically feasible, blah, blah, blah. How about some hard facts instead of your “theories.” Obviously the long haul mills had an advantage or the local Cody mill. Better equipment, better processes, closer to longer haul transportation? They did not haul those logs that far to lose money. Simple economics.
Down south we have watched the Forest Service miss-manage the forest to such a degree that it all burned up in the Hensel, Arapaho and Britannia fires. Sure, the environmentalists blame it on climate change, but after the Arapahoe fire what was left was successfully thinned and logged for salvage. In unburned areas we have a pretty nice forest. Where it was burned will never be the same in my kids lifetime – which is a shame. We watched the beetle kill logs go to waste, ultimately burning up in various fires in the Laramie and Snowy Range. We need a more nimble Forest Service not hamstrung by environmentalists.
I think his point was that the timber was available, the local mill just isnt efficient enough to compete for it. Having more timber doesnt rectify that situation.
Lodgepole pine and subalpine fir(which is what the majority of our wyoming forests are) are simply not good for large scale timber. Its slow growing and small diameter. Areas that are economical to log in the US are already heavily logged.
Have you driven in our forests lately? Where is the timber you want cut in Wyoming? Management for mostly log pole tree farms were decimated by the beetle. Most of the easily cut dead timber has been cut or burnt.
I’m curious who is going to fast track permitting for wood harvest, and have timber sales and oversee the timber harvest workers to keep them in line and watch what they are doing when you have gutted the US for service.
Log baby log.
We had a bustling timber industry into the late 80’s. Environmental groups, Canadian lumber subsidy, and poor forestry management ruined it. Pope and Talbot had 6 mills between Sheridan and Custer SD. Hill City SD had a nice medium size mill and there were several more small mills in the two states. Now there are only three actual lumber mills in the two states and a couple of pellet mills and some specialized post and treatment plants. Putting stumpage up for sale is a great idea, but there are very few logging contractors out there anymore and even fewer log truck drivers. The finished products tariffs on Canada is only the start of reshoring our lumber industry, investments in opening closed mills, investments in start up logging contractors, etc. will need to happen. This takes time and money. It also carries a lot of risk. Contractors and Mills will be sued by environmental groups as will the USDA and BLM. There is also the risk of policy change in four years putting them all out of business after a short run. A return to good forestry is a necessity – can we do it? I don’t know. I was a sawyer and feller buncher operator back in the day but the end of the industry was the end of that. I loved that job and would probably still be doing it today. We shall see if the industry decides its worth the risk. Earth First! We’ll log the other planets later!
I grew up in Dubois in the 1970’s and I remember even then the damage the pine beetles caused.I’ve seen the damage that runs from Alaska to Mexico. So you decide, do we take an active hand in management, or does it all burn ? Nature will cure it,but it won’t be fast or pretty.
It’ll happen around the same time when all those bigly factories and American manufacturing magically appear in the U.S., as promised by the mad king with his recession-bringing tariffs.
All of this will stir people up but won’t actually expedite anything. The biggest delay to getting anything accomplished on federal land is waiting for the cultural resource inventory to be completed.
The logging industry can’t make it on their own, they must be heavily subsidized.
That is pure baloney. My family has been buying timber from the forest service and private owners side by side for years. Pay same price. Private owner makes nice income. Forest service loses money. Why? Expenses. It takes one private guy a couple hours to make a deal. He oversees the operation himself. Takes a herd of government workers to mark every tree, have meetings and meetings even before the sale. Have layers of overhead. It’s not a revenue problem, it’s an expense problem.
Not to mention the legal battles the FS has to fight against the greens in court. Well said Scott
“It’s an expense problem”. That’s right. payed for by the public.
And who is responsible for the expense side in a timber sale? The government. So I guess that means the loggers are subsidizing the government to help them offset their overly unnecessary expenses which makes them unable to compete with the private timber owners. They subsidize you as well every time you take a drive into the forest.
The difference is that you are making money and I’m not. I subsidize you and the forest service.
So if I am given a house, put 300K into it and the sell it. However the market price is only 250K and I decide to take that, does that mean I subsidized the buyer. I think NOT. Loss is on the seller.
Mr Dickerson, not sure about your logic, but I’ll let it stand as stated. Job shops within the USFS all exist to support timber. Every one of them spend vast amounts of time reviewing proposed timber projects before contracts can be let. Archeology looks into historical sites, Hydrology makes sure water features are taken into consideration, Wildlife reviews areas for just that wildlife impacts, Fire, well they put out wildfires so that more timber is available for sale, and they also do the remediation work after a timber unit has been logged. Silviculture looks at the overall health of the forest, Engineering looks at road impacts, and Timber assess’ each stands appropriateness before any of the other work even begins. . These steps are taken to protect public lands. You get it, this land is my land, this land is your land…. These are all things that the private owner doesn’t do and may or may not care about other than the addition of $$$ to their bank account. During the last beetle outbreak in the Black Hills the mills refused to take beetle killed wood. Yet it was the very logging industry that contributed to the beginning of the endemic by not logging a timber sale near Bear Mtn that they had 10 years to complete and chose not to do so. What about the 3 million federal $$ that was spent getting fire salvaged timber from northern California by rail car to a mill in Hulett, Wy, even tho there was a mill owned by the same Neiman family closer in southern Oregon. Over the past 2 decades I’ve seen how the forest has been degraded in our effort to provide more for the logging industry and requiring less from it in relation to remedial work. Skidder trails on slopes that used to be reseeded are now piled with slash instead….roads are never brought back up to standard, ruts caused by large machinery working in wet conditions are permanent fixtures on the landscape. So you’ll excuse me if I don’t agree with your assessment cause from my view I’m just not seeing it. Like most for profit company’s you will do what is best for your bottom line, and it’s up to the Federal agencies to protect the publics land. Period.
Getting closer and closer to the day when we all take our final swirl down the toilet bowl to that magic treatment center that some think exists… That’s what happens when the population of human monkeys, with their undying desire for plunder and wealth, is turned loose without restriction. Won’t be long before Trumpism exceeds bible thumping as the leading religion in this sorry dump of a country.
Nobody is arguing against better management of the forests, along with thinning and fuel reduction. Most people simply don’t trust the duplicitous alt-right politicians or the timber industry with responsible stewardship of these resources. The work needs to be done, but WY must find an institution with integrity to complete it, and that simply doesn’t exist right now. We can’t trust the freedom caucus with a porta-poti, how can they possibly manage our forests? Perhaps outsource to the Canadian or Mexican timber companies; less chance of getting stabbed in our economic and environmental backs.
No one happens to mention the fact that the Forest Service gives away the trees for essentially free. So if mills cant make it with virtually free logs, how could they make it in a free market economy?
You need to do your homework. There is a mill in Evanston that’s 70 years in Wyoming.
I know you don’t think there’s anything on the west side of the state except Jackson and the parks but you are wrong
The Fix Our Forests Act (HR 471, 119th Congress), if it passes into law, exempts designated firesheds from NEPA analysis. I read this to mean hacking and slashing our Forests is OK. It’s not OK. If logging is to happen, it still has to have a scientific and sustainable basis.
One thing I worry about is, with climate warming–you know, the climate warming that’s a hoax and therefore isn’t happening, even though our local glaciers have lost 30% of their mass over the last 30 years–regeneration and recovery are at risk as the climate, and therefore the environment, continue to warm and forest soils become drier. In other words, there’s a chance that our forests, once cut massively, won’t come back.
With respect to the Dunoir Special Management Unit near Dubois, created as an SMU in the 1973 Washakie Wilderness Act, it has legal quasi-wilderness status, where logging is forbidden. This is going to be interesting.
Log it. Don’t let it burn up.
Past the point of no return. Nobody in their right mind would build a new saw mill in the western US since the USFS and our dysfunctional forest policies have almost destroyed the industry. Would you spend millions of dollars building a new saw mill knowing that you cannot depend of harvesting timber on federal forests. Most of our saw mills have been totally taken out of production and the sites repurposed. The western US forest health are dependent on the timber industry to do the work and that infrastructure has been demolished which the exception of the large companies in the NW who have extremely large acreages of private land to work on.
The Neiman saw mills have been drastically impacted by a shortage of available timber from the Black Hills National Forest – Hill city was shut down due to a lack of wood and it is surrounded by abundant federal forest for over 50 miles in all directions!! Therefore, the probability of disastrous fire is very high. Even if the saw mills could be brought back on line it would take 20 years of intense activity to restore the forests health in the Black Hills.
Trump’s 25% tariff on Canada could reduce the supply of Canadian timber we depend on and result in a significant increase in finished lumber prices – that’s called inflation. We’re looking at many years of disastrous forest fires – paying lip service to reversing our policies will accomplish very little – only boots on the ground loggers and sawmills can restore forest health.
Well said. I grew up in Custer SD and in 1985 all you saw in town was log trucks and pick ups with saws in the back. Now its tourists. My mother worked at FS office and when she retired her statement to me was that Environmental groups and Canadian subsidized lumber had ruined our timber industry.