Gordon Beck, facilities director in the Washington state school superintendent’s office in Olympia, said timber sales had been projected to provide $143.8 million of the $670 million needed in the school-construction fund for the two years starting July 1, 2009.
Unfortunately this last March saw the Department of Natural Resources offer 14 timber contracts in 10 counties, but nobody bid on eight, so only six were sold. That means there could be in upwards on a $50 million shortcoming in monies.
As recently as 15 years ago, timber revenue provided more than half the money for the fund. Since then, the proportion has dropped steadily, mostly because of increases in the cost of construction materials and labor and will be less than one-sixth of the total in the next biennium, he said.
In addition to funding the school-construction account, about 30 percent of the timber-sale revenues are used to manage the state’s trust lands. The department has laid off 100 employees out of about 1,300 workers, and more cuts may be coming.
For those of us that once worked in the Forest Industry in Washington State, it is no surprise that the availability of best long-grain, knot-free timber from the larger trees may be gone for ever. Now, when a logging truck is seen on the roadway it more often has a load of 30 or so small logs, where they once had a load of 4 to 8 logs! The Washington State forests, both State-owned and Federal-owned have changed forever, along with the traditional revenue support those trees provided to the local communities.
For those of us that once worked in the Forest Industry in Washington State, it is no surprise that the availability of best long-grain, knot-free timber from the larger trees may be gone for ever. Now, when a logging truck is seen on the roadway it more often has a load of 30 or so small logs, where they once had a load of 4 to 8 logs! The Washington State forests, both State-owned and Federal-owned have changed forever, along with the traditional revenue support those trees provided to the local communities.
they have to resolve this matter asap