Document 49: Lumber Companies Oppose the Establishment of North Cascades National Park, 1966
Statement of Douglas Mavor in U.S. Senate Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs, North Cascades—Olympic National Park: Hearings, Eighty-Ninth Congress, Second Session, on the Study Team Report of the Recreational Opportunities in the State of Washington,
February 11 and 12, 1966, p. 143-46.
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STATEMENT OF DOUGLAS MAVOR, ANACORTES VENEER CO.
. . . My name is Douglas Mavor. I am logging manager for Anacortes Veneer Co. in Anacortes.
This statement outlines the position of 74 small timber-using mills and loggers of the North Puget Sound region regarding public land use of the North Cascades area.
The names of firms subscribing to this position are shown below. All are dependent primarily or completely upon public timber as its [their] only source of raw material.
Companies listed include plywood, lumber, and cedar manufacturers, and independent logging companies. The major pulp companies are still cutting privately owned stumpage as their main source of wood fiber, although all use substantial quantities of public timber. Our mills are located in Everett, Marysville, Anacortes, and Bellingham and in various small communities within or adjacent to the Mount Baker National Forest.
Direct employment in these mills at the present time is about 3,000 men. Almost an equal number of loggers, another 2,500 men, are employed in the woods, constructing roads, logging the timber, and delivering the logs to the mills. Our approximate present annual cut totals 300 to 350 million board feet of logs. . . .
This timber cut provides mill and logging payrolls of about $22 million each year and contributes direct support for more than 10,000 families, plus indirect remuneration to many thousands more. We produce forest products valued at more than $50 million annually. It should be emphasized that, in addition to our mills, Weyerhaeuser, Scott Paper, Georgia Pacific, and Simpson operate large pulp and lumber operations in Everett, Anacortes, and Bellingham and draw upon this same geographical area for timber supplies. Their statistics are not included in this presentation.
In short, the forest industry is the primary industry of the area and the principal tax support for our local, county, State, and Federal Governments.
Loss of these payrolls and loss of this tax revenue will be in direct proportion to the loss of the availability of public timber with which to sustain our mill operations.
During the year 1963, receipts for timber sold on the Mount Baker National Forest amounted to more than two and a half million dollars and the counties of Whatcom, Skagit, and Snohomish received 25 per cent, or $640,000, as their share to be used for schools and roads.
However, the present annual sustained yield cut of the Mount Baker Forest is only 164 million board feet and even though combined with existing State and private timber, a shortage already exists. Also, most of the remaining timber volume, which is estimated at 16 billion board feet, consists of overmature and defective stands of old growth hemlock and silver fir. This timber is typical of most of the national forests in western Washington and is deteriorating rapidly. At the present time about 25 percent of the gross timber volume is being removed in the form of cull [dead and decaying or otherwise defective] pulp logs. It is low value material and cannot be used in our mills. In 25 years we estimate that 40 percent or more of the gross timber volume will be unsuitable for plywood or lumber manufacture due to further decay and deterioration. Best silvicultural practices dictate that these stands be cut and the lands reforested with a new crop as soon as practicable. To delay orderly liquidation is to invite disaster through insect infestation, blow down decay, or forest fire.
Even more important, to withdraw commercial forest lands from the North Cascades region for any reason whatsoever will only waste an important natural resource needed to sustain the communities and the people of the Pacific Northwest.
Now, with regard to the Fred Overly report [Overly was superintendent of Olympic National Park, and his report advocated reducing the size of the park by a few thousand acres], we strongly support this proposal; we feel that it is in the interests of this country. We agree with the speakers that have made their presentation this morning that requested that when and if this area was withdrawn from the Olympic National Park that it be restricted for manufacture, the logs to be taken therefrom restricted to manufacture by mills within our own continental United States.
As a sidelight, I would like to say that in our area last year we saw the permanent closure of one plywood mill in the Darrington area and prior to that we had the permanent closure of a large plywood mill in the Everett area, and within the last 10 years we have had permanent closure of a third plywood mill in the Darrington area, and of the six mills that used to operate, we are down 50 percent, or three plywood mills.
Now finally, we believe that the Forest Service is managing the Mount Baker National Forest in an excellent manner and in the best interests of the American people. The timber is being harvested as a crop on the basis of sustained yield, offering stability of employment and a regulated supply of forest products, now and in the future. We believe that the national forests are for the use of all people and all interests, commercial and noncommercial, minority groups as well as majority. Anything short of this view is not true conservation. . . .
[Mavor concluded by presenting a petition that had been signed by 74 lumber companies.]
Plywood manufacturers:
Anacortes Veneer, Inc., Anacortes.
Everett Plywood & Door Corp., Everett.
Mount Baker Plywood Co., Bellingham.
Three Rivers Plywood Co., Darrington.
Lumber manufacturers:
Buse Mill Co., Marysville.
Carroll Mill Co., Sedro-Woolley.
Eclipse Lumber Co., Everett.
Everett Lumber Co., Everett.
Great Western Lumber Co., Sumas.
Goodyear Nelson Lumber Co., Sedro-Woolley.
M. & M. Lumber Co., Arlington.
Northwestern Manufacturing Co., Everett.
Portage Creek Lumber Co., Arlington.
Priest Lumber Co., Hazel.
Robinson Lumber Co., Everett.
Seattle Snohomish Mill Co., Snohomish.
Skagit Veneer & Lumber Co., Concrete.
Stanwood Lumber Co., Stanwood.
Summit Lumber Co., Darrington.
Washington Timber Products, Everett.
Welco Lumber Co., Marysville.
Willis, Rogers & Pearson Lumber Co., Sedro-Woolley.
Wieser Lumber Co., Marysville.
Cedar products:
Cascade Shake Co., Concrete.
Cedarcrest Shake Co., Sedro-Woolley.
Hurn Shingle Co., Sauk.
Jamieson Lumber Co., Everett.
Leveque Shake Co., Concrete.
Miller Shingle Co., Granite Falls.
Superior Shake Co., Concrete.
Supreme Shake Co., Hamilton.
Blakenship Shake Co., Marblemount.
Pilchuck Shake Co., Arlington.
Pioneer Shingle Co., Anacortes.
Logging operations:
F. R. Bradley Logging Co., Oso.
Dave Buchannan Logging Co., Darrington.
Carlson & Gay Logging Co., Arlington.
Howard Clevenger, Sultan.
Bill Corning Logging Co., Bellingham.
Crowell Logging Co., Monroe.
Cunningham Logging Co., Concrete.
Ensley Brothers Logging Co., Sedro-Woolley.
C. M. Fink Logging Co., Darrington.
Forrister & Son Logging Co., Darrington.
F. E. Foss & Sons, Anacortes.
Galbraith Logging Co., Darrington.
Greenleaf Logging Co., Darrington.
Hammer Logging Co., Monroe.
Robert Haner Logging Co., Wickersham.
Hawkins Bros. Logging Co., Snohomish.
Holdrich & Wren, Baring.
Holm Bros. Logging Co., Arlington.
Hornbeck Bros. Logging Co., Concrete.
George Impero, Maple Falls.
Janicki Logging Co., Sedro-Woolley.
Al Leavitt, Glacier.
John Lind Logging Co., Monroe.
Moran & Robertson, Bellingham.
Nelson Brothers Logging Co., Monroe.
Novak Logging Co., Sultan.
Pefley Logging Co., Deming.
Rankin Logging Co., Darrington.
Reed Logging Co., Monroe.
Roetscinder Logging Co., Snohomish.
Roesler Logging Co., Sultan.
S. & N. Logging Co., Sultan.
Fred Schular Logging Co., Concrete.
Strid Bros. Logging Co., Arlington.
Van De Grift Logging Co., Burlington.
Herb Walcker Logging Co., Sultan.
Washington Loggers, Bellingham.
West & Son Logging Co., Darrington.
Willard & Thompson, Granite Falls,
Wilmac Logging Co., Granite Falls.
Wright & Son Logging Co., Darrington.
Zender Bros. Logging Co., Deming.