WESTERN WOODS

an area covering eastern Oregon and Washington across to the Black Hills of South Dakota and south to the Mexican border, has seen production flatten or shrink. Ten years ago, production was evenly split between the Coast and Inland regions. Today, Inland production totals 6.8 billion bd. ft., or a gap of some 4 billion bd. ft. under Coast volumes.

Ponderosa pine has long been the staple for Inland mills, but that is changing. Inland ponderosa production over the past decade has declined by 27Vo, or about 600 million bd. ft. Meanwhile, both Inland Douglas firlarch and hem-fir production since 1995 have expanded by l87o each.

The Califomia Redwood region has followed a similar path. Production in the northern California areas has fallen by one-third since 1997 to just over I billion bd. ft. While redwood is the highest produced by volume in this region, other species- mostly Douglas fir-now comprise almost half of the production.

These shifts underscore the changing lumber product mix in the West. Today, more than 86Vo of the region's production is in structural lumber, including joists, studs and timbers. Appearance grade products, ranging from board Commons to Shop and Selects, accounted forjust l4%o of production, compared to 35Vo of the output two decades earlier.

The gains in western production have come despite a shrinking base of producing mills. At the industry's peak in the 1960s. the West rvas home to more than 1.000 sarvmills. The alltime high westem output of 24 billion bd. ft. in 1987 rvas produced by 702 sawmills. Today, horvever, just 229 sawmills are operating in the region.

The demographics of western sarvmills have changed as rvell. Fifteen years ago, production was split among small. medium and large mills. Today. almost 65% of the region's production comes from large mills, producing 100 million M. ft. or more annually.

Size rvill matter even more in the future. Currenrly,2T mills produce in excess of 200 million bd. ft. of lumber a year-double the number of mills producing that volume just five years ago.

The rvestern lumber industry is poised for the future. Companies are investing millions in new manufacturing technology, increasing efficiency and lorvering costs. Advances in areas such as automated lumber grading will allow sarvmills to become even more competitive.

More challenges are on the horizon for rvestern mills. from the transfer of forestlands to Timber Investment Management Organizations, or TIMOs. to the grorving presence of lumber imports from Canada, Europe and Latin America in the market. Horvever, as it has proved so many times in the past, the western lumber industry can change adversity into opportunity.