Logging trucks hauling to Lincoln

Despite the Standard Mill shutdown, logging trucks are still downshifting on highways 108 and 4 with full loads — but instead of the short jaunt to Standard Mill, they’re driving the 100-plus miles through the foothills to sawmills in Lincoln.

Cedar logs are still going to Sierra Pacific Industries’ Chinese Camp Mill, but everything else SPI cuts goes to Lincoln, SPI spokesman Mark Pawlicki said.
  

SPI runs the majority of logging operations in the area.

Pawlicki said there’s been a slight uptick in the lumber market, but “nothing to write home about.”

Tim Tate, SPI Sonora District manager, said there’s been a slight decrease in logging on the company’s private forest lands in Calaveras and Tuolumne counties since the mill closure. But, he added, the lumber market slowdown or the mill closure should not prevent SPI from managing its local land.

“We see this as a temporary thing,” Tate said. “We’re able to weather these things, in terms of what should be done in the woods.”

The two SPI mills in Lincoln are now taking logs that would normally go to closed mills in Standard, Camino and Quincy. But production has not increased at the Lincoln mills, SPI spokesman Mark Luster said.

“Mills don’t run high or low,” Luster said. “They’re always running at the same efficiency.”

SPI is currently dealing with logs from timber harvest plans they’d purchased prior to closing the three mills, but will make deals in the future that “make the most sense” in the current market, Luster said.

The Stanislaus National Forest has some recent success in finding timber buyers.

A high bidder was found on Tuesday for a portion of the Mi-Wok Ranger District’s Phase II Fuel Reduction Project, which has been broken up into four separate timber sales, said Jerry Snyder, forest spokesman.

The high bidder should be awarded a contract today, Snyder said.

Earlier this month, the logging project was appealed by out-of-area-environment groups, but the appeal was denied by the U.S. Forest Service’s regional office and portions of it immediately went out to bid.

Snyder said that with the current timber market, as with many industries in the current economy, forest officials have had to be creative in how they package timber deals.

“Many don’t sell initially, but we repackage,” he said.