Any west coast loggers here?

Good Luck !!

 

There are so many unemployed log truck drivers right now somebody new doesn't stand a chance. Log hauling also doesn't pay nearly what it did in the good times. Drivers are working for about $15 per hr. & the gyppo rates suck too. A good friend reports that he made more hauling scrap metal part time with his end dump last winter than he will make doing logs full time this summer.

The reason you are seeing more trucks than you used to is that the export market has picked up. Logs are being shipped to China from ports in Sac, Richmond & Eureka, that I know of. It's a bit disgusting to see a mill shut down and a ship parked across the street taking the logs that should have kept the mill running to China. China is paying more than the mills can for the logs & there is no market for lumber so the mills are all shutting down or cutting back & letting the logs go.

 

What's wrong with a willing seller selling to a willing buyer? If oil is a worldwide commodity, then cellulose is a worldwide commodity and the seller has the right to sell to whoever will pay them the most for the cellulose.

I have been involved in the forestry/timber business for 30+ years and I can tell you that the main problem is the lack of green sales (cutting living trees) on federal land (50% of the productive forest land in California was stolen by the US government and over 85% of my state Nevada was stolen!) and the USFS rarely if ever does green sales. They do salvage logging after fire and/or insects have killed the trees (somehow they prefer that to humans harvesting the trees). The USFS and the California legislature have done everything they could possibly do to shut down the timber industry in the state. Over that period of time 80+ sawmills have closed in California (with 20,000+ jobs lost)...why? Lack of access to enough logs to keep the mill profitable...you can't run a truck without diesel and you can't run a mill without logs. Sierra Pacific Industries mills tend to stay open because the company owns about 1.5% of California's land mass and they don't rely on the USFS for raw material (although the Hayfork and Quincy mill have closed). The mills were closing down long before this slowdown in housing began, though the housing crash and cheap dollar (which makes US commodities a bargain) have exacerbated the problem.

SPI to Close Small-Log Sawmill in Quincy, CA. Campbell Group
Timber Trends, March 2009​

Sierra Pacific Industries (SPI) announced it will close its small-log sawmill located in Quincy, CA on May 4, 2009. According to SPI, the challenging lumber market combined with litigation over timber harvests on nearby national forest lands were the primary drivers behind the decision to close the plant. Area manager Matt Taborski said "The reduced availability of national forest timber resulting from litigation forced SPI to transport logs over long distances at greater cost to keep the mill running," he added. "Today’s lumber prices are not sufficient to cover these increased costs. To make things worse, environmental litigation has not only reduced the mill’s raw material supply, but also increased the risk of wildfires in the area" he continued. This mill is part of a two-mill complex – one cutting small diameter logs and the other cutting large diameter logs into lumber for domestic consumption. About 150 employees will be affected by this closure. Approximately 160 will remain employed at the large-log facility and biomass electric generation plant.

California forest grow more wood each year than the roughly 40 million Californians can use, yet California is a net importer of wood ...

Make me King of California and I could turn these trends around in a month, but it would be ugly ...