Toledo lumber mill to close, putting 50 out of work in seventh Oregon mill closure in 2024

Western Cascade Industries is closing its lumber mill in Toledo this week and putting about 50 people out of work.

The Lincoln County Leader reported that mill employees were informed on July 22 the mill would be closing at the end of July.

It's the seventh timber mill to shut down this year across Oregon, following the closure of Malheur Lumber Co. late last week.

“They’re shutting the power off Aug. 1, is what I’ve been told,” Walt Adams, the mill’s general manager, told the Leader. “They’re pulling the plug here, so everybody’s going to be laid off by the end of this month.”

Adams said the closure of the mill appears to be the result of a lumber market that has “just kind of been down across the board" and that not enough logs had been coming in.

Toledo City Manager Doug Wiggins told The Oregonian the mill was the town’s second-largest employer.

Seventh mill closure in Oregon this year

The mill was the seventh sawmill or timber operation in Oregon to close this year following the shuttering of:

• Malheur Lumber Co. closed and laid off 76 employees in late July.
• C&D Lumber Co. in Douglas County shut down in May, leading to 78 jobs being eliminated .
• Prairie Wood Products in eastern Oregon suspended operations and laid off the majority of its employees on March 1
• A Philomath sawmill shut down in February , eliminating about 100 jobs in the small community west of Corvallis, owned by Interfor Corp.
• Rosboro Co. temporarily closed its Springfield mill and laid off 25 in early February.
• Hampton Lumber closed its Banks mill and laid off 58 in January.

The fact that almost all the closures have been in rural areas has meant the impact is even greater. U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, said he's reached out to Ochoco Lumber to try to save Malheur Lumber Co. , the Blue Mountain Eagle Reported.

“I am exploring every avenue at the federal level that could help to meet the challenges outlined in the letter by Malheur Lumber: workforce, housing and capacity to handle responses to the wildfires ripping through Eastern Oregon,” Wyden told the newspaper.

A problem for overstocked Oregon forests

The loss of rural timber mills is a problem for a number of reasons, including for thinning overstocked forests, said Nick Smith with the American Forest Resource Council, a timber trade group.

“These loggers provide the boots on the ground for reducing wildfire risks on our public lands,” he said. “These manufacturers provide markets for the wood that needs to come out of the forests. There are no markets where there are no industry, and Grant County is a really tragic illustration of that right now.”

More Oregon mill closures to come?

Just about every timber company that has closed referenced the inability to get the timber required to keep the business going.

“The current log supply restrictions in Oregon and the likelihood of additional restrictions on state forests in the coming years, we just can’t see a viable future,” Hampton CEO Randy Schillinger said in closing its mill in Banks earlier this year.

Smith added that in rural parts of the state, logs can only be found on federal forests with strict limits on logging.

"There are multiple factors impacting the sector, but the common thread is timber supply, or the cost of the raw material to make the products," Smith said. "We’ve lost five wood processing facilities and there will probably be more before 2024 is over."

Zach Urness has been an outdoors reporter in Oregon for 16 years and is host of the Explore Oregon Podcast . Urness is the author of “ Best Hikes with Kids: Oregon ” and “ Hiking Southern Oregon .” He can be reached at zurness@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6801. Find him on X at @ZachsORoutdoors.

This article originally appeared on Salem Statesman Journal: Toledo lumber mill to close, putting 50 out of work in seventh Oregon mill closure in 2024