Reports From The States

[Ron Scott]

Michigan

MeadWestvaco Corporation today announced that it has reached a definitive agreement to sell its Papers business and associated assets for $2.3 billion to a new company controlled by Cerberus Capital Management L.P., a private, New York based investment firm.

[sprucebunny]

Meadwestvaco sold five mills in this deal
Rumford , ME
Escanaba , MI
Chillicothe , OH
Luke , MD
Wickliffe , KY
The deal also included 900,000 acres of land in Illinois ,Kentuckey ,Michigan , Missouri ,Ohio and Tennesse

[Ron Scott]

Michigan

RE:  NEW PUB - MICHIGAN FOREST COMMUNITIES: A FIELD GUIDE AND REFERENCE

It's an MSU Extension publication authored by Don Dickmann.  The MSUE number is E-3000.  The book is 158 pages and loaded with photos.  

You can try to order it through the clunky MSUE Bulletin office website [ http://web2.msue.msu.edu/bulletins/intro.cfm], but I can't tell you the steps because I've not had the patience to work through the protocol.  The better bet is to talk to the county Extension office and have them order it.  The cost is $14.95 .  Over 5,000 shown in stock.  Use "E3000" as the "inventory number".  Doesn't show up on Amazon.com, yet.  

[Ron Scott]

Alaska

 Forest Service to Inventory 7.5 Million Acres of Alaskan Wilderness

 

February 11 - The USDA Forest Service has announced that its Alaska Region, in conjunction with the Pacific Northwest Research Station, will begin a congressionally mandated, 10-year program to inventory and analyze the 7.5 million acres of Alaska national forest wilderness and wilderness study areas during 2005. The survey, which is intended to provide baseline information about the region's forest health, will entail monitoring up to 93 plots, some of which are known to be remote and difficult to access. In fact, it is for these very reasons that Alaska's national forest wilderness areas have not been inventoried as part of the congressionally mandatory forest inventory analysis.

 

For more information on the Forest Service in Alaska, visit the Alaska Region website.

 

[Ron Scott]

Montana

Bark Beetle Infestation Called an "Epidemic"
 
March 17 -- The Independent Record of Helena, Montana, recently reported that infestations of various bark beetle species have become an "epidemic" within the Forest Service's Northern Region, an area containing national forests in Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas. According to agency surveys, as many as at least 1.6 million acres are infested. In 1999, the number of acres infested was estimated at 400,000. Regional Forest Service officials blame the increased beetle populations on an aging forest, coupled with dense, overgrown stands and drought. Bark beetles are said to be a normal part of forest ecosystems and, in lower numbers, help create snags, which provide habitat for other wildlife.

To learn more about bark beetle management in the West, visit the website of the Forest Service's Bark Beetle Disturbance Ecology Work Unit.

[Ron Scott]

Quebec, Canada

Quebec to Reduce Timber Harvesting by 20 Percent

March 18 -- According to the Canadian news service Canada.com, Quebec's provincial government has accepted the recommendation of the Coulombe Commission (a body organized in 2003 to examine the economic, environmental, sustainable, social and regional aspects of Quebec's forests) which advocates a reduction in the amount of harvesting taking place in Quebec's forests. In a report released last December, the commission said that forests in the province were over-harvested. As a result, Quebec Natural Resources Minister Pierre Corbeil, introduced legislation last week that would reduce timber harvesting in the province by as much as 20 percent. The legislation passed and the reduction is scheduled to begin April 1.
 
The Quebec Forestry Industries Council, a group opposed to the reduction, estimates that as many as 10,000 jobs will be lost.

For more information about the Coulombe Commission's report, visit the Forest Certification Watch website.

 

[Ron Scott]

Florida

Florida Forest Industry Overtakes Citrus in Revenues
 
April 27 -- According to a University of Florida study, citrus is no longer the top moneymaker in Florida's $67 billion agriculture industry. Forests and the products made from them generated $16.6 billion in economic activity in 2003, creating 133,475 jobs, the study said.

Based on an article that appeared in the Times Union (Jacksonville, Florida), Alan Hodges, an economist at the university's Institute of Food and Agricultural Services, said "Citrus is the crop most people associate with Florida ... but our study indicates forestry is now the economic heavyweight in the state's $67 billion agricultural and natural resources industry."

Hodges added that forestry has been maintaining a steady growth while citrus has been declining and said part of the reason is the demand for lumber generated by the four-year housing boom in the state.

To read the University of Florida study, visit the Institute of Food and Agricultural Services website.

 



 

[Ron Scott]

Arkansas

Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, Thought to be Extinct, Rediscovered in Arkansas
 
April 28 - More than 60 years ago, biologists said the Ivory-billed Woodpecker was extinct in the United States. Yet, a group of wildlife scientists recently made seven firm sightings of the bird in central Arkansas.

According to a report from National Public Radio (NPR), "after an intensive year-long search in the Cache River and White River National Wildlife Refuges involving more than 50 experts and field biologists working together as part of the Big Woods Partnership, an ivory-billed male has been captured on video."


 

[Ron Scott]

Michigan

FINALIZATION OF PURCHASE

DAYTON, OH- May 2, 2005. NewPage Corporation announced today that it will begin operation as an independent company focused solely on the coated and carbonless paper business. This follows the MeadWestvaco (NYSE: MWV) announcement of the Papers Group sale to Cerberus Capital Management L.P., a private, New York-based investment firm.

NewPage has fully integrated pulp and paper mills in the eastern United States, supported by 6,300 employees. It made nearly 2.5 million tons of paper last year and generated about $2.3 billion in annual sales.

This transaction includes the pulp and paper mill in Escanaba, formerly a MeadWestvaco mill.

[Ron Scott]

Michigan's  U. P.

SALE OF FORMER MEADWESTVACO TIMBERLANDS IN THE U.P.

Plum Creek to Buy Timberland in Michigan

Plum Creek Timber Company, Inc. today announced that it has signed a definitive agreement to purchase approximately 650,000 acres of timberland in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan from Escanaba Timber LLC. The transaction, valued at approximately $345 million, is subject to customary closing conditions. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2005.

The forestlands, which have been certified to the Sustainable Forestry Initiative® (SFI) standard, contain an attractive mix of timber species and age profiles including mature mixed hardwood.

[Jeff]

More on the Plum Creek deal:
http://www.paperage.com/2005news/10_03_2005plumcreek.html

[pasbuild]

WHOW what a wealth of info
Thanks Ron

[Ron Scott]

Mississippi

In initial surveys, the Mississippi Forestry Commission found that about 7 million of the state's 19 million acres of forestland were damaged from hurricane Katrina.

The Commission noted that the downed trees and derbis had created extremely dangerous wildfire conditions.

[Ron Scott]

Oregon

According to the president of the Oregon Chapter of the Northwest Log Truckers Cooperative, at current prices, 30-40 percent of the cost of operating a truck is spent on fuel.

The American Forest & Paper Association (AF&PA) says that higher fuel costs make it tougher for US Companies to compete in world markets.

[Tom]

........and I was always told that 1/3 of the cost of the board was in the transportation.

It has to get from the stump to the store someway.

[Ron Scott]

Louisiana and Mississippi

Timber Companies Rushing to Reach Trees Knocked Down by Hurricanes

Timber companies are rushing to reach the millions of trees knocked down by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita before they start to decay, making them worthless as lumber and adding to the region's risk of catastrophic wildfire.

State officials estimate the value of the fallen trees at about $900 million in Louisiana and $2.4 billion in Mississippi.

The region's processing facilities have been scaled back in recent years and the storms have made it difficult to bring plants back into operation. In response, Atlanta-based Georgia-Pacific Corporation plans to restart two of its plants and Weyerhaeuser Company is hiring more contractors to clear damaged forests in Louisiana and Mississippi.

Officials say the unusually hot weather and lack of precipitation since the hurricanes have led to dry conditions that, combined with the downed timber, make the area more susceptible to wildfires.

For more information about the effects of the storms, visit the Mississippi Forestry Commission and the Louisiana Forestry Association.

 

[Frank_Pender]

You got is Ron on the cost of hauling here in Oregon.  Right now all the independent drivers are charging a sir charge for fuel.  I am sure the big boys are adding it up some as well.

[Ron Scott]

Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama

Forest Products Industry Works to Recover After Hurricanes

November 19 – In the wake of the hurricanes Katrina and Rita, timberland owners large and small are rushing to sell their downed lumber—in some cases for less than half what they normally would make—before the wood becomes worthless.

According to the Associated Press, the hurricanes damaged about 5.7 million acres of timber in Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama—enough to produce nearly 900,000 single-family homes. Officials estimate that the total timber loss in the four states is nearly $6 billion. The amount of acreage damaged represents 20 percent of the private, state, and federal forest land in those states and 1 percent of the nation's forests.

Some industry officials worry that landowners will now find new uses for their land given the high cost of recovery and reforestation. As a result, regional forestry officials are lobbying for changes to federal aid regulations so timber land owners can receive assistance following natural disasters.

 

[Ron Scott]

California

New Experimental Forest in California, First in 40 Years
 
November 30 – The US Forest Service, in collaboration with the University of California–Berkeley, has created the Sagehen Experimental Forest, an 8,100-acre forest located about 10 miles north of Truckee and 30 Miles west of Reno, Nevada.

The experimental forest is California's 11th experimental forest and the first since 1962.

Managed by personnel from UC Berkeley, Tahoe National Forest, and the Forest Service's Pacific Southwest Research Station, the land will facilitate the study management techniques and the design of a strategic fuels reduction plan to decrease the intensity of wildfires in the Sierra Nevada.

To read the full story, visit the Union Tribune website.

 

[Ron Scott]

Wisconsin

RE:  Wisconsin Right to Practice Forestry Act Passed

On 21 December, Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle passed the Right to Practice Forestry Act.  This law establishes that no ordinance be enacted or regulation adopted that may prohibit forestry operations that are in accordance with generally accepted forestry management practices.  In some instances in the past few years, local town boards had passed ordinances prohibiting a private landowner from harvesting timber off their property.  This new law allows sound harvests to occur without interference.