Inflation hits the Maine logging trade : NPR

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Rising gas costs, gear prices and provide chain delays are squeezing loggers in Maine. The challenges started two years in the past, however now inflation poses powerful questions for the trade. Nicole Ogrysko from Maine Public Radio has the story.

NICOLE OGRYSKO, BYLINE: Jim Robbins worries in regards to the rising value of paying his workers and powering his white pine sawmill close to the Maine coast. However what actually retains him up at night time is what he’ll do if the unbiased loggers he depends on cannot deliver him the wooden he must run his mill.

JIM ROBBINS: We develop timber rather well within the state of Maine, however you have to have the folks to exit and minimize that wooden and produce it to the mills. And you’ll have an incredible lumber mill, however you are not going to have an incredible lumber mill if you do not have the loggers on the market to deliver that wooden to the mills.

OGRYSKO: The value of diesel has doubled inside the final yr. It is now greater than $6 a gallon in Maine. Robbins helps truckers cowl some gas prices, and he says he is paying extra now for the logs and fiber that his unbiased contractors deliver to his mill. And whereas most mills in Maine at the moment are paying a bonus to offset the price of gas, the final six months of volatility and provide chain challenges have pressured some loggers to query whether or not they’ll proceed on within the enterprise.

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OGRYSKO: For Thomas Douglass, there is not a lot of a selection. He normally appears to be like ahead to the tip of spring when the dust roads dry up and unbiased loggers like himself return to the woods.

THOMAS DOUGLASS: Normally once we’re on the point of roll stuff out of the storage, I am similar to a child in a sweet retailer. I need to see issues get again to work. I need to see guys get again to work.

OGRYSKO: However this spring, all the things is dearer.

DOUGLASS: It was the least I ever regarded ahead to going again to work after one season, I suppose. Let’s put it that approach.

OGRYSKO: Douglass estimates the price of operating his enterprise has gone up between 20% and 30% during the last two years, and particularly within the final six months.

(SOUNDBITE OF PROCESSOR TAKING DOWN TREES)

OGRYSKO: However he’s again within the woods checking on his crew that is clearing white birch and different timber for pulpwood.

DOUGLASS: That machine proper there, I used to be informed the opposite day by the gear seller I purchased that machine from – I do not know if it was price it or not, however its value was one other $80,000 larger a yr in a while a machine that was a lot costly within the first place.

OGRYSKO: Like Robbins, some mills in Maine are paying barely extra now for uncooked fiber. That is helped, however the volatility has pressured loggers to cut back their operations, retire or go away the trade altogether, says Dana Doran, the chief director of the Skilled Logging Contractors of Maine. And a few aren’t returning to the woods in any respect this spring.

DANA DORAN: They’ve both shut down, seen workers go away for greener pastures they usually have not been in a position to exchange them, so they do not, or they’ve moved into different occupations. They’re trucking different commodities. They is perhaps trucking water, or they’re trucking completed lumber.

OGRYSKO: Or they’re clearing land for builders to construct new photo voltaic farms. Forest economists consider the market will ultimately modify, and extra mills might want to pay extra for wooden. If they do not, loggers will go away the enterprise, which economists say may have an enduring impact on Maine’s forest trade. However for Douglass, he’s too younger to retire at age 32. He may promote certainly one of his logging machines that is sitting within the storage if he cannot discover and rent the crews to function it. Nevertheless it’s too quickly to depart the enterprise behind, difficult as it’s.

DOUGLASS: I’d say it is surviving – undoubtedly not thriving however surviving, and doubtless simply that.

OGRYSKO: No matter occurs to the trade, Douglass simply hopes it stays robust sufficient to ultimately entice his younger sons into the enterprise.

For NPR Information, I am Nicole Ogrysko in Parkman, Maine.

(SOUNDBITE OF BENN JORDAN SONG, “LEAVES”)

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