| Last Major Sawmill Closes
November 1, 2002 Journal Staff Report Albuquerque Journal To submit a Letter to the Editor: bhume@abqjournal.com ESPAŅOLA - Blaming environmental groups for delaying or halting federal timber sales, New Mexico's last major sawmill will close Monday in Espaņola with the layoffs of about 85 employees. "I think the (U.S.) Forest Service has been backed into a corner by these groups because there is too much money backing them," said Coy Ernst, general manager for Rio Grande Forest Products. "If one of the environmental groups comes in and lays an appeal out, it has been an extremely drawn-out process, often to no avail to the timber industry," he said. "They often end up losing the entire sale." Rio Grande Forest Products, a subsidiary of Idaho Timber Corp., operates the largest sawmill and planer facility in New Mexico, although several small specialty sawmills and lumber operations are spread across the state. About 200 contractors also will be affected by the shutdown. A skeleton crew will remain at Rio Grande, with hope that enough timber can be stockpiled for the mill to reopen in January. "Because of the decreasing supply of available logs, Rio Grande has now become deeply concerned about the continued viability of the operation in Espaņola," a company news release stated. Rio Grande should blame its shutdown on market conditions or its own business practices for not sustaining private-land forests, said John Talberth, conservation director for the Santa Fe-based Forest Conservation Council. "If they are cutting themselves out of business, that's their own problem. That's not our problem," he said. Since 1996, when Duke City Lumber sold the Espaņola sawmill to Idaho Timber, Rio Grande has relied almost entirely on timber from private land or land controlled by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs, Ernst said. That supply is dwindling, and the mill cannot stay afloat without other federal timber sales. Rio Grande has produced from 30 million to 40 million board feet of lumber a year, mostly construction-grade boards, landscaping timbers and window frames. http://www.abqjournal.com/paperboy/text/news/794354news11-01-02.htm |