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Serving 13 Southern states

PUBLISHER David Culler (dcutler@ ioc.net)

SENI0R EDITOR David Koenig (dkoenig @ ioc.net)

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C0NTRIBUTING EDIfORS Dwight Cunan, Gage McKinney, Earl Moore

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The Woman In The Tlee

When the environmental movement first emerged in an amalgam of hair, pot smoke and idealism in the 1960s, many in the forest products industry saw it as a passing fad.

While much good has undeniably emerged, it has also engendered a host of questionable concepts generally accepted by a gullible public, such as global warming, animal rights and, of course, no tree cutting.

The forest products industry tried to appeal to public opinion with a calm, rational, truthful message. The other side uses emotionalism and highly suspect statistics.

That emotionalism is winning can be seen by the favorable publicity enjoyed by a 24-year-old woman who has trespassed on Pacific Lumber Company land in California's Humboldt County since December. Ensconced 100 feet high on a small platform, she has vowed to remain until Palco promises not to cut the huge redwood tree.

Scme background: Julia "Butterfly" Hill, the offspring of a travelling preacher in Arkansas, grew up in the back of a camper truck and worked as a bartender until she got the call to "heal the planet." Whatever that means. She has named the tree Luna (the word root here is lunatic) and claims Luna talks to her. The Earth First! collective in nearby Arcata keeps her supplied. That Pacific Lumber Company has not had them all arrested (or worse) shows admirable restraint.

The potential for trouble implicit in environmental activism, however, was tragically illustrated in the apparently accidental death last month of a logging protester, a24-year-old Texan who was killed by a falling tree.

The Pacific Lumber Company, which has a 129-year record of responsible management of its lands, is a favorite target of radicals who prefer to ignore that positive record for their own, skewed views.

We suspect future generations will look back on these times and wonder what was the matter with all of us.

Ace Opens Corporate Stores Near Atlanta

By the end of this month, Ace Hardware will open a new corporate-owned store in Lawrenceville, Ga., its fourth in the Atlanta area. Units were added recently in Alpharetta, Marietta and Sandy Springs.

It's no coincidence that the stores are opening in the hometown of Home Depot; the first cluster of three corporate stores opened recently in Chicago, home tenitorv for Ace and rival

TruServ, while another set of three will open later this year near Seattle, Wa., base for Eagle Hardware & Garden.

Eventually up to 12 stores might be opened in an area, plugging "holes in the market." They're part of Ace's aggressive plan, "The New Age of Ace," aiming to increase the co-op's retail sales from last year's $12 billion to $16 billion by 2000.

The new corporate stores are similar

L-P Exiting Treating Business

To finance the upgrade of other facilities better focused on the general retail market, Louisiana-Pacific Corp. has placed its remaining treating plants and several sawmills up for sale.

On the block are treating facilities in New Waverly and Silsbee, Tx.; treating plant/lumber mill in Statesboro, Ga., plus sawmills in Eatonton, Ga.; Hattiesburg and Philadelphia, Ms., and Chilco-Sandpoint, Id. Earlier in the year, the Portland, Or.-based company sold is most modern treating facility, in Ukiah, Ca.

Bill Hebert, director of strategic planning, says the facilities for sale are more focused on local markets, while L-P is targeting the larger retail lumber market, which consists mostly of small dimensional lumber. such as 2x4s and 2x6s, and engineered wood products. to an independently owned Ace hardware store, ranging in size from 8,000 to 20,0(X) sq. ft. Yeq each will stock about 35Vo more inventory per foot than the current stores and feature a large customer service booth.

Other companies have shown interest in all of the properties, so L-P expects to complete the transactions by year's end. The proceeds will help fund "a focused, multi-year, capital improvement strategy, investing tens of millions of dollars, designed to increase mill capacity and efficiency, while upgrading quality and manufacturing flexibility on specialized lumber products."

The new stores should help not harm business for independent Ace dealers, stresses Brett Stephenson, a regional manager for the division. He says that the corporate stores are an Ace division, so every Ace owner holds a stake in them. Eventually, all of the corporate stores will be put up for sale "after they get up and running." He adds: "What we're all trying to do is support our retailers and increase our market share."

Having seen most of the other local independents forced out of business by the big boxes, Seattle Ace dealer Don Wolffe agrees with Ace's strategy. "I think they're trying to prove a point," he says, "to show it can be done."

The new stores will stress convenience-getting shoppers in and out as quickly as possible. An employee will be stationed at the front door to greet customers and lead them to what they need. That, Ace figures, should be easier in their 17,000-sq. ft. stores than in a 100,000-sq. ft. home center.