Dear HCN,
In response to the lead
article, “After the fall” by Steve Thompson, and Ed Marston’s
column (HCN,
5/8/00), here is Plum Creek’s perspective. We at Plum
Creek disagree with the premise of both the column and the article
that sets up an artificial conflict between small mills and large
forest products firms such as ours. In the first place, many of the
smaller mills referenced in the earlier article are customers of
Plum Creek’s. We sell logs, often large logs too big to be
processed in our plants, to these small businesses. No less
important, though, is the fact that Plum Creek, like the smaller
firms highlighted in the article, makes high value, specialty wood
products for niche markets. This philosophy and direction is what
makes us a well-recognized and well-respected supplier for a
variety of industrial and retail customers.
And
to borrow a well-worn phrase, the rumors of our demise in the
Rockies are seriously overstated: Plum Creek is positioned to be a
long-term forestland owner and forest products manufacturer in the
Rocky Mountains, as well as other parts of the country, for decades
to come.
Plum Creek has nine manufacturing plants
in the Intermountain West, including four sawmills, two plywood
plants, two remanufacturing plants, and one medium-density
fiberboard facility. We make a variety of specialty lumber products
for customers such as window and door manufacturers and retail home
centers. Our plywood is some of the best in the industry, and goes
into boats, recreational vehicles, and fiberglass-reinforced
panels. And our medium-density fiberboard, recently certified for
its recycled content, goes to customers like molding manufacturers
to become a replacement for ever more expensive “real” wood
moldings.
Plum Creek offers high value products
and high value services to our customers through long-term,
customer-service-oriented relationships. And we continue to invest
in our Rockies manufacturing facilities to keep up with customer
needs, and to match our facilities to the trees we grow and
harvest. In fact, over the past five years, Plum Creek has invested
over $75 million in our mills in Montana and Idaho, including
purchasing a remanufacturing facility in Meridian, Idaho, in 1997.
We are currently in the middle of a $69 million expansion of our
MDF plant – a move that will boost our production by 70 percent and
add several new employees.
In addition to the
investments in our mills, Plum Creek also has invested heavily in
our forestlands. In our first move to grow Plum Creek to what is
now the fifth largest forestland owner in the U.S., we purchased
865,000 acres of Champion timberlands in Montana in 1993, nearly
doubling our size here. And yes, Plum Creek does sell some lands
that have higher and better uses for other purposes. Since 1995 we
have sold approximately 25,000 acres in Montana and Idaho, over 80
percent of which has been to conservation buyers, primarily the
federal government. In addition to conservation land sales, Plum
Creek has exchanged thousands of acres of environmentally and
visually sensitive company property in Montana and Idaho to the
federal government over just the last five
years.
To ensure sustainability, Plum Creek has
adopted a series of programs over the past decade to help us meet
environmental objectives while also meeting our timber resource
needs. In 1991, we adopted our own Environmental Principles
protecting air and water quality, wildlife habitat, and ensuring
reforestation. Our use of clear-cuts dropped to only 5 percent of
our harvested acres in the Rockies. Then in 1994, Plum Creek
committed to the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, developed by the
American Forest and Paper Association and required of member
companies. And in 1999, Plum Creek became the first company to have
all of our forestlands across the country independently verified to
be in compliance with SFI. We have published a report summarizing
the results of the audit. We have also adopted an action plan that
requires us to improve our performance on our next audit. Our
adherence to SFI and our commitment to conduct regular third-party
audits ensures that Plum Creek will continuously improve our
sustainable forestry practices.
All of us at Plum
Creek work to be the best at what we do and what we make, with the
best employees and logging contractors in the business. Under SFI
and our Environmental Principles, we will continue to improve our
performance. I hope that the readers of High Country News can agree
that it is indeed a new day both in the Rockies and here at Plum
Creek.
Charlie
Grenier
Columbia Falls,
Montana
The writer is executive vice president of Plum Creek Timber Co., Inc.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Plum Creek is here to stay.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
