Shipping Jobs to China?
Whole-log exports are boosting timber values while a local mill lays off 60 workers
(March 31, 2011) George Schmidbauer graduated from Willits High School in 1947 and worked his way through college like many other young men at the time, by pulling green chain — grabbing and stacking freshly milled lumber as it came off the line. After college he was drafted, served two years in the Army and was discharged in 1955. Then he headed straight back into the timber business — or “bidness,” as he says it — founding his own company, Schmidbauer Lumber Inc., in 1972.
At 81 he still has the broad chest and strong hands of a mill worker, though his eyes, which nest in the shadow of his furrowed brow, betray a certain weariness. This air of fatigue could have a lot to do with the fact that he was forced to shut down his Eureka sawmill a couple weeks back, placing 60 of his company’s 140 employees on unemployment. (The planing mill and machine shop are still operating, and a stockpile of milled lumber keeps the shipping department active.)
The sawmill closure was necessary due to a lack of supply, Schmidbauer explained last week while sitting in a wood-paneled conference room on the second floor of the mill’s office building. On the wall opposite him was a pair of windows overlooking the dark, mechanized innards of the shuttered mill. Weather’s a factor in the log shortage, Schmidbauer said, as is the still-sluggish housing market. But there are logs to be had. In fact, many timberland owners have refrained from harvesting in recent years in the hopes that market prices would rebound.
Many of those landowners are now ready to sell their logs, but not to Schmidbauer. He simply can’t pay them the price that’s being offered by international exporters, who in recent years have been buying up more and more lumber and logs from across the Pacific Northwest and beyond, then shipping it overseas — primarily to China.
The explosion in forest products exports, which began a few years ago in British Columbia and has now spread into Washington and Oregon, has provided a welcome income stream to timberland owners battered by the 2008 housing market collapse and the subsequent recession. This bullish demand from the Far East shows no signs of flagging. Last year, the value of North American softwood logs and lumber exported to China exceeded $1.6 billion according to Wood Resource Quarterly, an industry magazine. That’s up from just $125 million five years ago.
All of which has been welcome news for many West Coast lumber towns, particularly Canadian ones. British Columbia’s Minister of Forests, Mines and Lands was recently quoted in another industry publication saying that China’s seemingly insatiable demand for wood products “means more forestry workers are back on the job, more mills are running, and forest-dependent communities are enjoying more economic stability.”
If this sounds like opportunity knocking for Humboldt County, well, the equation here isn’t quite so simple for a number of reasons. For one thing, our port has a less-than-ideal dock configuration and lacks the modern infrastructure found at many other West Coast shipping centers. Secondly, the weather and terrain on the North Coast make logging a seasonal business. And thirdly, Canada has mostly been shipping cut lumber, whereas U.S. suppliers have focused more on whole-log exports.
That’s what’s happening here on the North Coast as local timber companies and entrepreneurs try to tap into this emerging market: They’re bypassing mill operators like Schmidbauer. This is happening despite a rebound in the prices he’s offering for logs. A couple years ago, he said, he could only offer $300 to $325 per thousand board-feet. “Now we’re payin’ $425,” he said. But that’s no match for exporters, who are offering more like $525, he said. So while Schmidbauer could potentially make a profit selling these exporters cut lumber for the same price they’re now paying for raw logs, there’s simply no incentive for timberland owners to cut him in on the deal.
→ post a comment
on the cover
Railroad!
Proposed lines ‘set rich blood a-tingling’ in early 1900s
Some Other Proposed North Coast Railroads
Choo-choo Fantasies
Exposing this east-west rail nonsense
seven-o-heaven
Undeterred Will
Will chides Andrew for lack of attention to detail and makes plans for his inevitable victory.
Recent on the cover
May 17
Ring of Fire
Sun and moon will perform a rare pas de deux in Humboldt skies on Sunday
May 10
District Soup
Racing for the top county seat in the 1st, 2nd and 3rd districts
May 3
A Place in the Woods
As park closure deadline nears, a scramble to save what we can
Today
44th Annual Kinetic Grand Championship Race
STAFF PICK / events, art, outdoors, sports, for kids, free / 9 a.m.-6 p.m. A 3-day, 42-mile kinetic sculpture race over land, sand, mud and water! LeMans start at the Noon Whistle on the Arcata Plaza. Follow the race through Manila, Eureka and into Ferndale on Memorial Day for the Glorious Finish. kineticgrandchampionship.com. 889-3024.
Flow 2012 Fashion Show
STAFF PICK / events / 8 p.m. Arcata Theatre Lounge, 1036 G St. Student designed and produced clothing. Fundraiser for Arcata Arts Institute. $35/$25 students. artsinstitute.net. 822-1220.
Woodside Preschool's Rummage/Bake Sale
events / 8 a.m.-noon. Woodside Preschool, 900 Hodgson St, Eureka. www.woodsidepreschool.com. 445-9132.
Lanphere Dunes Restoration
STAFF PICK / outdoors / 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. Meet at Pacific Union School. Help remove non-native invasives at the Lanphere Dunes Unit of the Humboldt Bay National Wildlife Refuge. Tools and gloves provided, wear work clothes and bring water. Carpool to the protected site. 444-1397.
More →
11 Comments
Comment / By Rich Quick / March 31, 1:54 p.m.
As long as we’re exporting a national treasure that we can’t seem to use here…I wonder how much I can get for my children overseas, since their nation is divesting in them anyway.
Comment / By phil / March 31, 3:43 p.m.
Since the collapse of the timber industry in Humboldt county it seems that we’ve been thrown into a bipolar logic of anti-scientific, emotive, so-called “environmentalism,” and an equally irrational, (not very well) greenwashed timber harvest industry. In this split we’ve lost probably the most valuable thing that Humboldt county ever had, aside from its now 90something% decimated Old Growth—a real, worker-based impetus toward collective ownership and management of our natural resource commons. Today, instead of IWW-style discussions of how best to communalize our land and distribute its bounties equally, many want to kick the logging industry out entirely, while others think that “green” capitalism can create incentives to allow Green Diamond to make a profit and create jobs while also doing little harm to the environment. What gets lost between the primitivism and psuedo-anarchism of our so-called “environmentalists” and the newer, greenwashed face of the same-old-capitalism is a realistic and very POSSIBLE communalization of our shared resources. If all profit from the harvesting of timber were kept in the hands of those who harvest the timber and those who are affected by it’s harvest, it would be much easier to argue for keeping the processing local—or you could simply use the common profit to subsidize local mills until a market for surplus-added products reemerges in the future.
Aside from the natural capital we are exporting to China, I am curious to know how much profit is exported from Humboldt into the hands of the shareholders of Green Diamond, etc., compared to the amount left here in the form of wages.
Comment / By Anonymous / March 31, 6:30 p.m.
Phil, the local logging industry wants to be seen as a resource provider while operating like any profit based company. The resource in question is obviously nowhere near as renewable as the logging companies want us to think, nor are they as “green” as they’d like us to believe either. In fact, when people think “green”, they don’t think “deforestation”. Quite the opposite. These companies still log at maximum allowances set by higher regulators, spinning the story so as to have us believe they’re voluntarily slowing their roll, so to speak.
So basically I agree with you sort of for the most part I think. Those companies are just a bunch of human beings like everybody else, they can change their ways as much as everybody’s had to on account of their company’s environmental damage. Our planet’s environment is in critical condition, and the global consensus recognizes a 180 u-turn is needed to save everybody’s future. That’s reality. There is no better time to start than fifty years ago.
So, like any company, loggers are cutting jobs at the bottom while still seeing profits at the top. The logging companies own LOTS of Humboldt County’s open space, and it would be excellent for everybody in the world if that space was allowed indefinite generations to reforest itself. This can happen simply by further restricting the amount of local logging and insisting on exclusively “selective harvesting” or whatever Green Diamond etc. calls it at an extreme maximum….
…just like any company, let the loggers fight out the profit loss among themselves until each company has been whittled down to their current highest-ups going out with chainsaws and “harvesting” one log per acre per day themselves so they can maintain their personal profits. $500 per day is still over $100,000 than most of Humboldt’s population makes in a year. Give them the land outright if that’s what it takes, they obviously don’t recognize the need for REforestation on massive levels right now.
Trees are not commodity anymore than livestock or human beings.
Comment / By Farmer / April 2, 12:07 p.m.
Phil, I’m calling B.S. on your analysis.
Since when did Humboldt county have a “worker-based impetus toward collective ownership and management of our natural resource commons.” ?
Why do you think all Humboldt environmentalists are psuedo-anarchist or primitivist?
Do you believe EF! Humboldt is trying to end all logging in Humboldt? I can tell you we are not. We want restoration forestry to be implemented where appropriate, which is a huge percent of the land.
What do you actually know about the situation?
I think your full of it.
Comment / By Red / Yesterday, 8:30 a.m.
I wish we could pound the Humboldt environmentalists to the ground. However if I run into some scum down at the river I don’t know if he’ll survive.
Comment / By Anonymous / Yesterday, 9:42 a.m.
How are we supposed to use all this lumber locally? Environmentalists fight against development, and then throw a fit when the lumber gets exported. Japan is going to require a massive rebuilding effort, and China may very well sell them that lumber, with trees they bought from the U.S. Would people still protest if we were shipping lumber to Japan? People don’t want the 101 widened, which might help to stimulate the local depressed economy, and then wonder why the timber industry looks elsewhere to sell their goods. Which do you want, a growing local economy or a development-stagnant export economy? It seems to me that you can’t have both. The housing market is still at its bottom, so there’s not even that much demand for new houses; can we support a timber industry on current house repairs or small building projects? Food for thought.
Comment / By proud tree hugger / Yesterday, 10:01 a.m.
anonymous 9:42, at least you’re being honest about your beliefs, as ass-backwards as they are. If you’re among those who think widening the 101, through an ancient and endangered redwood grove nonetheless, is going to stimulate the economy, your opinions are pretty moot. Double so if you think the current rate of logging is carved in stone. Triple so if you think “developers” are really persuing the general public’s best interests. There’s already plenty of ‘development’ in humboldt. That industry needs to stop feeding the beast.
In fact, some of the very same people responsible for shipping those logs to china are pushing for a Home Depot in Humboldt, where local contractors would buy what? “cheap chinese crap” is what it’s generally known as.
As if logging, real estate and construction are the only industries worth time and money in Humboldt. We want stability, not more of the same. The loggers are bragging that business is profitable “once again”. They don’t care at all that everybody else’s is on the downturn.
Comment / By Anonymous / Yesterday, 1:10 p.m.
It’s my understanding that no old growth will be cut in the proposed widening through Richardson Grove, and will a few more feet really impact the roots more than the already existing road? I thought part of the argument against widening the 101 was that it would bring in the big box stores and turn Humboldt into the next Santa Rosa or San Francisco. That could only happen if the economy expanded, which would create more jobs and maybe lift Humboldt out of the poverty state that it’s in. Not everybody can be a grower, you know, some people have to, or choose to, work jobs that pay a regular wage, have health benefits, retirement plans, etc. Not all Chinese products are “crap,” and it seems a bit nationalistic, maybe even racist, to adopt that view. Many of the fancy gadgets that people love so much, and buy hand-over-fist, are manufactured in China and other Asian nations. Is it because China is the #2 economy in the world, threatening to overtake the U.S., that Americans are so against “made in China”? Has Target, K-mart, and Costco ruined the “Humboldt way of life?” Why aren’t people out protesting in front of those big box stores, if they are so evil? Maybe some people want Humboldt to remain in poverty, want the jobless rate to stay high, think it’s somehow revolutionary to be poor. Tell that to the 11+% unemployed who need jobs and can’t find them.
Comment / By Ching Tao Dong / Today, 12:52 p.m.
We’ll have you all singing “China is Great” the USA will be gone, suckers!
Comment / By Farmer / Today, 1:36 p.m.
The discussion is not about shipping milled lumber products to tsunami ravaged Japan. It’s about shipping raw logs to China, where it will be used for concrete forms to add to the already excessive un-occupied developments there.
Comment / By Anonymous / Today, 3:11 p.m.
What source do you get that from? The Chinese government is very smart, and intentionally curtails their growth when they need to, to prevent economic bubbles like the ones in the U.S. China is also a growth economy, building out their infrastructure, and I’m sure that they will put the logs to good use, as needed. They may plan to sell lumber to Japan for their rebuilding projects, after milling it themselves. It’s a global economy, welcome to the 21st century. We should be thanking China for creating some kind of market, since the U.S. has a glut of houses, a housing market that is still at its bottom (unless we go for a double dip), a national economy that’s barely recovering, and a local economy that is stagnant, at best. You fight against local development and then whine when raw materials are shipped elsewhere. No wonder Humboldt is such a poverty-stricken county, with locals who fight tooth-and-nail against virtually any kind of economic growth, unless it fits in with their strawbale mentality.