coming to a fo Are Sustained Yield Plans ou?

A S THE deadline looms closer for lA.companies possessing sizable commercial forests in California to prepare a Sustained Yield Plan, landowners in other states are wondering if they could be next.

California already has the most stringent Forest Practices Act in North America, and other states often follow its lead. "These things usually start in California, then spread," says Pam Allsebrook, California Redwood Association. "And this assures people the forests are going to be around. It's not just a good idea. It's the law."

"(Other states) have already begun to reform their forest practice rules and bring them closer to where California is, in areas of streamside protection, watershed and habitat issues," says Donn Zea, California Forestry Association. "Yet California was already so stringent we were capable of making the transition more easily than other states."

In February 1994, setting a worldwide precedent, the Board of Forestry enacted Section 913 of the Forest

Story at a Glance

Will other states follow California's lead in requiring landowners to design costly 1 O0-year harvest plans?

Practices Act. Controversial and divisive even within the industry, the rule requires any company owning more than 2,500 acres of commercial timberland to prepare a Sustained Yield Plan by November 15,1996.

The Sustained Yield Plan will estimate the maximum level at which the company can harvest trees while at the same time growing as much as they cut. The plan looks at not only timber harvest over time, but also at the sustainability of all forest resource including wildlife, watershed and soil. The completed plan will outline what steps need to be taken to achieve such an environment in 100 years. The

Board then requires that the plan be carried out and that no company harvest more in any year than mandated by the plan.

But timber companies have discovered just how expensive it can be to calculate a 10O-year plan for thousands of acres. Although the vast majority of landowners have yet to file a proposal, Georgia-Pacific submitted its plan last September. G-P's I,500-page report required sophisticated computer mapping and modeling plus five years of on-the-ground inventory-taking to survey its 195,000 acres of California timberlands.

Pacific Lumber Co., Scotia, Ca., hired doctors in aquatic morphology and wildlife biology and a consulting company that helped prepare "one of the most sophisticated forest management models ever developed," says resource manager Tom Herman. "It considers an unlimited number of variables. The spread sheets are 130,000 columns wide by 60 columns long. We can calculate respective yield under time to maximize productivity of the forest. It should be a valuable tool for getting quick answers to changes in forest management and streamlining the review process."

"At 25,000 to 30,0000 acres is the break even point where the owner may receive some sort of benefit," says Dennis Onick, an administrator for the California Department of Forestry. "Louisiana-Pacific has spent more than $5 million and had to do an extensive rewrite. I'm sure they envisioned it would buy relief from the Endangered Species Act, help with watershed issues and provide a mechanism to comply with other regulations. The idea is to get out of repeated intensive reviews of individual projects. They're expecting some payback."

Onick predicts the high cost will prevent other states from emulating the plan, at least in its present form. In California, more than 500 landowners are affected, yet the department was allotted no additional funding to review and process their proposals.

"It's too short a time frame. We're going to have to make some assumptions," he says. "and review some proposals more intensely than others. We don't want the proposals to stack up."

In June, the department petitioned the board to raise the minimum number of acres affected from 2,500 to 50,000 acres, so less than 30 landowners would be required to do an analysis. Just raising the minimum to 10,000 acres would exempt 8O7o of landowners, many non-industrial forest or ranch owners. The board will weigh the department's suggestion during its meeting this month.

How easily such decisions are made will determine if timber companies in other states, who are typically satisfied with their current forest management, will be anxious to incur more costs. "It will come down to: Does it provide us with relief from the constant bureaucracy and oversight of the current timber harvest process and will it allow us the necessary flexibility to manage the forests for our purposes and goals?" Zea says. "If it does without creating greater bureaucracy, unnecessarily so, maybe other states will see it as visionary, as a plan that gets regulators off their backs."

Herman agrees: "A number of landowners have taken the reins and now we'll have to see how the state reacts. If it turns into a bureaucratic quagmire, I don't think anyone will follow. But if the system functions effectively and efficiently, perhaps others will look at it. The ball's in the government's court."

Enterprise-Dataline Merger

Enterprise Computer Systems, Inc., Greenville, S.C., and Dataline Corp., Wilton, Ct., have merged under the Enterprise name.

The merger, under consideration since 1990, provides Enterprise with nearly 2,000 installed sites in the U.S., Canada and New Zpaland.

Clarence Bauknight continues as chairman and Jim Sobeck as president. Hugh Bell, who founded Dataline in 1971, becomes vice chairman.

New Show For The West

A new regional Hardware, Housewares and Home Improvement Trade Show for the West is set for March

26-27 at the Anaheim Convention Center, Anaheim, Ca.

Robert Ingraham says his company, Exposition Excellence Corp., is introducing the Western and a sister Southeastern event Feb. 4-5 in Orlando, Fl., because trade shows draw regionally, and separate hardware, building product and houseware shows are all held in the Midwest.

"It is apparent that trade shows serving this industry are not covering the Western and Southeast markets as extensively as regions where the existing events takes place," he explains. "Retailers, distributors and wholesalers in these regions are engrossed full-time in their quest to remain competitive. Events that are easily accessible enable this group to keep abreast of the hottest trends in the industry. The horizontal nature of the shows, offering products from every category of the do-it-yourself domain, makes it possible for attendees to do their buying at one event rather than a half-dozen specialty shows."

Show manager for the events is National Hardware Show veteran Diane Waltersdorf.

Forest Products Week Kit

A communications kit to help the industry promote National Forest Products Week is being distributed by the American Forest & Paper Association.

The kit, available by calling (202) 463-2708, includes a news release, slicks of the event's logo, updated Quick Facts and Questions and Answers booklets, Sustainable Forestry Initiative Annual Progress Report, camera-ready op-eds and USA Todaystyle charts and graphics.

The Oct. 2O-26 event is themed "Healthy Forests for a Healthy Environment."

Norpac Buys Contact Division

Contact Lumber Co., Portland, Or., has sold a majority interest in its International division to North Pacific Lumber Co., Portland.

Contact International will continue to operate from Contact Lumber's headquarters as an autonomous business unit. Paul McKay remains president of both Contact International and Contact Lumber.

Norpac, with over $1 billion in annual sales, provides financial backing to Contact International's marketing of Lightning Brand, World Class Floors and other products.

Malaysia Gets Hoo-Hoo Club

With the formation

of Malaysia

Club #275, Hoo-Hoo International has landed in its fifth country, after the U.S., Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

Lee Chiew Fook, a member of the Melbourne, Australia, club and a resident of Malaysia, acted as go between for Hoo-Hoo and the Registrar of Societies in Kuala Lumpur, helping resolve the government's desire that all members be Malaysian citizens. Hoo-Hoo is a lumber fraternal order.

Big Land Buy For.Plum Creek

Plum Creek Timber Co., Seattle, Wa., has agreed to pay $540 million to Riverwood International Corp. for 538,000 acres of southern timberland, boosting the company's holdings to about 2.6 million acres.

The deal includes a sawmill and plywood plant in Joyce, La.; sawmill in Huttig, Ar., and predominately pine plantations in Arkansas and Louisiana, Plum Creek's first timber holdings outside the Northwest. Timber prices are generally lower in the South and environmental battles less frequent partly because 90Vo of the forests are privately owned.

The acreage involves essentially all of Atlanta, Ga.-based Riverwood's U.S. timberlands, as the company continues to focus on its core paper and packaging business following its sale from Manville.

Electronic Lumber Trader

Lumber Trader, PurPortedlY the lumber industry's first electronic database service, is now on line.

It allows retailers, wholesalers and manufacturers to advertise and search for their specific lumber products on a global scale.

Businesses can enter inventorY items for sale and choose which segment of the industry for their advertisement. Searching for specific items by size, length, species, grade, tallY, kind of stock, price, available footage, etc., can be done with a click of a button.

Membership fees range from $30 to $200 per month. The Web site is http ://LumberTrader.com.

Kitchen Cabinets Rising

Solid wood and wood veneer were the dominant materials (847o), while l3%o were laminate cabinets.

Recycled House On Display

For the first time a remodeled home is on display as part of the Portland, Or., Home Builders Association's 21st annual Street of Dreams exposition.

Co-sponsored by the Western Wood Products Association, Heritage House demonstrates ecologically sound building and remodeling techniques.

U.S. demand for kitchen cabinets and bath vanities experienced double digit growth for the fourth consecutive year, according to the Kitchen Cabinet Manufacturers Associatron. Demand climbed ll.2vo in 1995 to Veneer Group Celebrates 75

72.2 million units, due largely to unexpected increases in kitchen remodeling jobs and the average number of cabinets installed per job.

In 1995, the repair and remodeling sector consumed 54.3 million units, up 16.3%o, while new construction slipped l.6Vo to 17.9 million units. This year, repair and remodeling is expected to reach 54.8 million and new construction 18.2 million units.

5ir 1R"o*ood . 9ywood

The 1950s ranch style home was transformed into a 5,000-sq. ft. arts and crafts lodge-style house.

Hardwood Plywood & Veneer Association, Reston, Va., will celebrate its 75th anniversary during its annual convention Oct. 16-19 at Harvey's Resort Hotel & Casino, Lake Tahoe, Nv.

More than 1,000 wood industrY associates have been invited to the event, which will include a sPecial luncheon honoring HPVA technical director Bill Groah, who is retiring after 38 years.