{"id":8574,"date":"2012-06-27T08:15:48","date_gmt":"2012-06-27T14:15:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/?p=8574"},"modified":"2012-09-06T08:05:49","modified_gmt":"2012-09-06T14:05:49","slug":"was-a-small-idaho-sawmill-a-smart-way-to-spend-stimulus-dollars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/idaho\/2012\/06\/27\/was-a-small-idaho-sawmill-a-smart-way-to-spend-stimulus-dollars\/","title":{"rendered":"Was A Small Idaho Sawmill A Smart Way To Spend Stimulus Dollars?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Molly Messick \/ StateImpact Idaho<\/p>

A worker manned a machine as lumber headed to the stacker at the Emerald Forest Products mill this month.<\/p><\/div>\n

It’s a rare thing for a small sawmill to try to get up and running while a crucial market driver for lumber — housing construction — remains in a national slump. So when the Emerald Forest Products mill reopened in Emmett, Idaho<\/a>,\u00a0this month, something unusual was happening.\u00a0 “That’s a news story,” timber industry expert Todd Morgan<\/a> said of the new mill.\u00a0 “That’s like, ‘man bites dog’ instead of ‘dog bites man.’\u00a0 It’s very counter to the trend to have a new mill opening during these market conditions.”<\/p>\n

New home starts peaked in 2005, when construction began on more than 2 million homes<\/a>.\u00a0 By 2009, the number had fallen to 554,000, a low not seen in 40 years of record keeping.\u00a0 Housing starts haven’t improved much since.\u00a0 Moreover, the housing crash came on the heels of decades of timber industry consolidation.\u00a0 Since 1990, Pacific Northwest mill closures have put thousands of people out of work.<\/p>\n

Given all of that, how is the Emerald Forest Product mill making a go of it?\u00a0 Part of the answer is federal economic stimulus funding.\u00a0 To get up and running, the mill received $4 million in stimulus money through the U.S. Department of Agriculture.\u00a0 Mill owner Dick Vinson and his partners put up an additional $11 million, Vinson says.<\/p>\n

The Emerald Forest Products mill has something of a troubled history, as StateImpact<\/em> reported<\/a> last week.\u00a0 Vinson first tried to get it off the ground in 2010<\/a>, but the project foundered.\u00a0 Soon after that, Vinson and his partners filed for bankruptcy protection.\u00a0 In light of the market realities and the shaky path Emerald Forest Products has charted so far, it’s worth asking: Was a small-town sawmill a good bet for taxpayer dollars?<\/p>\n

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Molly Messick \/ StateImpact Idaho<\/p>

Logs awaited the Emerald Forest Products mill earlier this month.<\/p><\/div>\n

In interviews with more than half a dozen people including local officials, a former congressman and a regional coordinator for the U.S. Forest Service, the unanimous (and surprising) answer was “yes.”\u00a0 The reasons have to do with everything from the complexities of forest management to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act<\/a>‘s mandate to put federal dollars toward shovel-ready projects that might create jobs.<\/p>\n

“There certainly, in my mind, is a need for a sawmill in that area,” says Scott Bell, regional Woody Biomass Utilization Coordinator for the U.S. Forest Service.\u00a0 Of the nearly $28 billion in stimulus funding the U.S. Department of Agriculture received, $1.15 billion went to the Forest Service.\u00a0 Four million dollars of that money went to Emerald Forest Products.\u00a0 Bell submitted the project for consideration.<\/p>\n

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