Patrick Lumber expanding sawmill operations
Patrick Lumber Manufacturing (PLM) is adding a sawmill to its manufacturing facility located in Philomath, Oregon.
The mill is being funded in part by a $1 million Community Wood Grant provided by the USDA Forest Service.
Patrick’s is one of nine projects in Oregon to receive grants totaling more than $4,000,000 during FY 2023 through the Forest Service’s wood innovations and community wood grants programs. The program’s primary purpose is to support local economies while directly contributing to improving forest health and reducing wildfire risks to communities. Partial funding for the programs was made possible by President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act.
The new mill will be tooled to cut hardwood lumber, an unusual move in Oregon where the vast majority of mills process softwoods such as Douglas fir and Ponderosa pine, the state’s most common tree species.
While softwoods dominate, the forests of Oregon and Northern California also contain large volumes of Oregon white oak, Pacific maple, tan oak, madrone, chinquapin, myrtle, and Oregon ash. Attempts by others to develop markets for these species have mostly failed, other than a few mills that primarily cut alder.
With no commercial outlets for the fiber, hardwoods have become a nuisance for land managers working to improve forest health and are an increasing component of wildfire-threatened overstocked stands.
“We saw a real opportunity here,” said Patrick Lumber CEO David Halsey, “We can produce and market products that are in demand while also making it possible for forest managers to more economically perform activities that further the health of our forests.”
Halsey said he believes the mill will be the only commercial-sized hardwood mill in western Oregon that isn’t primarily cutting alder.