No old-growth needed.

This high-tech mill turns a profit with logs once scorned as "twigs" and help thin dogchair forests in the bargain.

While embattled Pacific Northwest loggers brawl with environmentalists over the future of the region's vanishing old-growth forests, a new state-of-the-art sawmill on the east slope of Washington's Cascade Mountains is proving that timber companies don't need those great old trees to survive. In fact, this mill saws up trees that the average logger would scorn as "twigs" and push into slash piles to be burned.

Among the points emphasized at President Clinton's Forest Summit in Portland, Oregon, last spring was that the Northwest's timber industry must shed its dependence on old-growth timber. But Longview Fibre Company, the Fortune 500 firm that built this mill, came to that conclusion four or five years ago.

Motivating that decision was the company's 80,000-acre tree farm, located about 200 miles north of its Longview mill on the Columbia River, sprawling across three counties on both slopes of the Cascades. Most of the tree farm's timber was logged off about 70 years ago and, typical of those cut-and-burn days, was not replanted, resulting in a forest that has grown like Topsy--dense and compacted, with a variety of species.

The traditional and comparatively easy answer would have been to clearcut and replant. But that would waste more timber than it would produce. "We studied it for quite some time," says Dave Bowden, the company's senior vice president for timber. "We didn't have a viable market for our tree farm. There were only two sawmills in the vicinity, and when they closed down, we decided to build our own processing facility."

Several other sawmills have been built in the state to handle small logs, but once Longview Fibre made the decision to build this one, it went all out. Consultants were hired to study the most advanced mills in the world, particularly in Scandinavia, which has nothing but small logs.

"The technology that supports this sawmill didn't exist in the United States 10 years ago," says Don Ledbeter, manager of Leavenworth Wood Products, as the mill is known, and an active participant in its planning and construction. "This is a whole new ballgame. We can handle logs down to four inches in diameter--nothing over 12 inches--and nothing is wasted. And we know exactly what we get out of every log that comes into the mill, down to the last grain of sawdust."

Built on a 40-acre site at a cost of more than $20 million, the sawmill marks a new venture for Longview Fibre, which operates one of the world's largest paper mills--12 machines producing kraft paper. The company already had a chipper mill at the site, a whistle-stop called Winton, which has the advantage of being within reasonable hauling range of all its far-flung tree farms.

The heart of the new mill is its Finnish-made HewSaw, one of only three in the nation. Logs go into the receiving end of the enclosed saw and are guided through by an operator punching instructions on a console that resembles an aircraft pilot's cabin. They come out the other end in boards of differing dimensions, including metric, ready for the trimmer and grading line. Integrated computers guide logs every step of the way through the mill--from the time they're dumped off log trucks and sorted into piles according to length, diameter, and species, to their emergence as finished timber. If a log is bent or crooked, no problem--the saw follows the "sweep" and turns out a usable board.

"The whole concept of this mill is to allow the use of logs that used to be left in the woods," says Ledbeter. Printouts show not only how much lumber each log produces but also the amounts of bark, chips, and sawdust, which are shipped to the Longview pulp mill. There the bark becomes "hog fuel," an energy source for the mill's steam boilers; the chips and sawdust are used for pulp making.

"We get a very high-quality wood out of these small logs," Ledbeter explains, "because the grain is tighter and there are smaller knots. In some ways, the product is better than if it were old-growth timber." The mill produces a variety of lumber, ranging from 1x2s to 8x8s, in lengths to 20 feet.

Computers even govern this final output. Under the direction of John Whittle, the mill's marketing manager, a computerized sales program constantly enters lumber-sales values. "We work with what's hot in the market," Ledbeter explains. "So if we find there's a demand for Douglas-fir 2x4s, we can deliver a million board-feet in a month."

The mill cuts up to 14 species of timber, which is then sorted into four groups. For example: western and mountain hemlock, grand fir, Pacific silver fir, and noble fir make up a "group sort," while Ponderosa pine is in a group by itself. As logs come off the incoming trucks--which are loaded with 100 to 120 logs each, compared with a dozen or fewer on trucks operating on the Olympic Peninsula--a computer operator sends them along a 600-foot-long, 46-bay sorter, which Ledbeter says is crucial to operating a small-log system. It sorts the logs by species, length, and diameter; logs over 12 inches in diameter are automatically deposited together in one bay and sold to other mills. The mill processes logs at a projected rate of 5,000 per 10-hour shift, with an annual production of 50 million board-feet.

The Winton mill, which began production in February 1992, answers another of the concerns raised at Clinton's forest conference--jobs in the depressed timber industry. The mill has been a boon to the depressed economy of Chelan County, contributing more than $3 million annually. It opened with one shift of 30 employees, and went to two shifts early this year, with 50 employees and seven staff persons now on the payroll. That doesn't count the contract loggers on the tree farm, a source of employment that Longview Fibre expects to be permanent.

"Clearcutting of east-side forests is on the way out," Bowden avers. "But we see an unlimited supply of timber for thinning."

The number of employees is expected to reach 100 when a dry kiln is added to the plant within the coming year. A dry kiln is basically a tightly enclosed chamber where newly produced lumber is dried by steam heat. The drying makes the lumber dimensionally stable by minimizing the moisture content, which adds value to the end product, reduces freight costs, and provides a higher rate of return by opening up a wider variety of markets.

Tree-farm manager Ron Simon sees this operation as having another benefit to the Northwest's forest economy. "Thinning makes a healthier forest," he declares. "Only a few years ago, the logs we were using were going to waste. They were regarded as unmerchantable scrap. But we're not only utilizing this resource--we're improving what's left."

His assistant, Alan Bibby, says the 70-year-old forest has "stagnated." Jam-packed together, trees are stressed by the competition for space, and thus are more subject to bug infestation. Forest Service studies also show these dense stands increase the fire danger, aggravated by the region's recent cycle of dry weather.

"We are capturing a tremendous amount of wood fiber from these small trees," Bibby says. "And the trees we leave standing are healthier. We have found a dramatic increase in ring growth on the surviving trees." The thinning leaves about 170 to 200 standing trees per acre, and these trees, freed of the overcrowding, will make more valuable timber for the future.

Besides its tree farm, Longview Fibre buys small timber from private landowners, for whom it provides a silvicultural assistance program, and from the Forest Service. And in an unusual trade-off, it takes the tapered small ends of logs from the two mills to which it sells its oversized logs, again using material that previously went to waste.

In a previous article for American Forests ("Timberlands Tomorrow," May/June 1990), I reported the consensus of industrial and academic forestry experts that mills equipped to handle only old-growth timber were on the way out; Northwest mills would have to adjust to a small-log supply or perish. Longview Fibre's sparkling new high-tech mill has proven this forecast, not only turning once-scorned logs into a profitable market but at the same time enriching the forests from which they came.

Another Mill Making Good with Young Growth

In the heart of Oregon's Willamette Valley, another mill has retooled itself to turn small timber into specialty and commodity products, particularly structural engineered items such as laminated veneer lumber. Led by R.F. "Dick" Baldwin, Springfield Forest Products (SFP) is emphasizing two-step processing--logs to veneer and veneer to lumber--that yields products that meet or exceed the strength of old-growth beams.

Stems with tips as small as two inches are "unbundled" into several products. Blocks with diameters larger than five inches are reserved for veneer peeling, and the resulting small cores are sold to specialty post processors. Blocks and cores that are large enough are sorted and resold to local mills for conversion to the 2x4s used in house construction. Residuals from the process are chipped for pulp use and for fuel to generate steam for conditioning blocks and drying the resulting veneer.

Springfield Group, the parent firm, does not manage large timber tracts, choosing instead to work with large and small landowners. Company foresters arrange cuttings to suit landowners' needs and provide information and advice on thinning, cutting, roading, and reforestation.

Like Longview Fibre's Leavenworth plant, featured in the accompanying story, the SFP mill also makes use of logs that once were left in the woods, including the traditional softwoods--fir, pine, and hemlock--and hardwoods such as alder, maple, and oak.

The company operates six facilities in all--two in Linn County, three in Lane County, and one in Coos County. Its emphasis on what used to be considered throwaway wood seems to be working--in less than four years, Springfield Forest Products has gone from having one location with 150 workers to employing more than 500 at its six sites.

Earl Clark, a frequent contributor, follows Pacific Northwest forest issues from his home in Port Angeles, Washington.