Albrecht Encouraged By New Timber Legislation
Sonora, CA — Mike Albrecht, president of Sierra Resource Management, is encouraged by recent legislation he feels was passed in the best interest of the struggling California timber industry.
Albrecht is praising the recent legislation that has added two years to any timber harvest plan.
“This is really moving in the right direction. We need the support of our legislative leaders in making sure that we are prepared for the turnaround in the econony … and it will turnaround. Then we can get our timber industry folks back to work, reopen the sawmills and return to the days when the timber industry was prosperous in California.”
Why the optimism? “A timber sale was bid on and purchased Monday by Sierra Pacific Industries. They purchased a big one a couple of months ago in Strawberry. Sales are being put up and sold. S.P.I. and other loggers are buying them so everybody is preparing for the economy to come back and it will and I think when it does we’ll have a vibrant timber industry again.”
What would it take to reopen the Standard S.P.I. mill? “From what I’m hearing there needs to be about a year’s worth of supply under contract for our local mill and that would be in the neighborhood of 80-100 million board feet. That can include S.P.I.’s own land and they have 30-40 million board feet that they supply each year off their own land. An additional 40-50 million board feet needs to be available from Forest Service offerings or from other private land owners around the state. The federal and state governments are working hard to make those offerings available and they are starting to relax some of the rules to move in that direction.”
Written by bill.johnson@mlode.com
