Published December
2000
Enterprise
Lumber to close; 170 jobs at stake
By
Bryan Corliss
Herald Economy Writer
ARLINGTON — Enterprise
Lumber Co. will close after the first of the year, eliminating jobs for
170 people at its three mills in Arlington and Oso.
The high cost of
raw logs and low prices for finished lumber are the reasons, according
to officials with Miller Shingle Co., Enterprise’s parent company.
“This has been a
very difficult decision for us, since we have so many great people working
with us,” company President Bruce Miller II said.
He said the company
is trying to find a buyer for the mills. No one has stepped forward with
an offer on all three properties, but “we hope to reach agreement soon
on individual sites,” he said in a prepared statement.
The first mill to
close, the Arlington sawmill, will shut down Jan. 7, Miller Chief Financial
Officer Tom Leach said last month. The other mills will close after that,
with the exact dates dependent on several factors, including the availability
of logs and how soon the trained workers can find other jobs.
The closures won’t
affect the remainder of Miller Shingle’s operations in Granite Falls and
Everett, the company said.
It’s too soon to
tell what effect it will have on the community, said Rob Putnam, Manager
of Arlington Municipal Airport. Enterprise has a long-term lease on 23
acres in the airport’s industrial park.
“It’s a complete
surprise,” Putnam said. “Until today we thought they were a pretty stable
company providing pretty stable jobs for their people.”
The housing market
has been strong this year, and that has increased demand for lumber, Leach
said. But it also has attracted the attention of lumber exporters in Canada,
Europe and elsewhere. They’ve flooded the market, pushing prices down.
At the same time,
log costs are high because of a shortage of logs, which Miller blamed
on “the artificially reduced volume of federal and state timber in the
local area.”
“Since proceeds
from state of Washington timber sales are used to finance school construction,
I’m very surprised that Washington property taxpayers aren’t up in arms,”
he said. “They should put more pressure on the lands commissioner in Olympia
to fulfill her legal requirement to continue to harvest timber on a responsible,
sustained-yield basis.”
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