Shift In Timber Rules Could Clear Way For Revival Of Wyoming’s Lumber Industry

Wyoming’s few remaining lumber mills have been struggling, but a shift in federal and state timber policy might herald a new era for the industry here. 

Gov. Mark Gordon on Friday signed an executive order calling for an “increase of active forest management in Wyoming.”

It mirrors President Donald Trump’s March 1 executive order for “immediate expansion of American timber production.”

That might be the break that Wyoming logging companies and timber mills have for years been anxiously awaiting, Jenny Haider, of the Evanston-based Smith & Jones Timber Company, told Cowboy State Daily on Monday. 

The fourth-generation family-owned business has been going for 80 years but barely survived the past few, she said. 

“The last three years were the worst three years in our history. It was a struggle. If we hadn’t of had a change in administration, we might not have made it,” she said. 

More Cooperation 

Trump’s order, coupled with tariffs on Canadian timber being imported into the U.S. could be a game-changer for logging operations and mills in Wyoming. 

Trump’s executive order called for a nationwide boost in the timber industry and Gordon’s order put it into focus in Wyoming, Kelly Norris, state forester for the Wyoming State Forestry Division, told Cowboy State Daily Monday. 

“This is a big deal for them (Wyoming’s lumber mills). It’s saying, ‘We want to manage our forests,’ Norris said. 

“We’re really trying to look at increasing and stabilizing the supply of forest products,” she added. 

It will start with more coordination between the state forestry division and federal forest managers – the Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service. 

But there should also be more coordination and cooperation at the local level – with county commissions and conservation districts getting involved, Norris said. 

The goal is to get timber companies access to forests across Wyoming, to better supply the mills. 

It’s a reversal of more restrictive Biden-era forest management policies, Norris said. 

“We’ve seen the amount of available timber and timber sales decrease over the past administration,” she said. 

Now, Wyoming timber companies are “using the word ‘hope’ again,” she added.

Getting Dead Timber Cleared Out

Countless acres across Wyoming are covered with dead timber, much of it still standing. Most of those trees were killed in previous pine beetle epidemics.

All that dead timber is a fire hazard, and it might hold at least some value, Norris said. 

Clearing out dead timber or “salvage logging” could be a boost for Wyoming timber companies, she said. 

But the longer the dead timber sits, the less it’s worth, as it starts to rot, she said. 

“In some places, we’re really starting to see a dwindling in the usefulness” of dead timber.

Haider said that as she sees it, removing dead timber is a vital step toward helping forests recover. 

“If you look at where the green forest is, it’s in the places that have been logged,” she said. 

Her company is willing to cut dead timber, but it can be a game of diminishing returns, she said. 

The lumber from dead timber, as opposed to that from green-cut trees can be “brittle” and more apt to crack and fracture, she said. 

Dead timber can be sold off as firewood or converted into pellets for pellet-burning stoves, she said. But the cost-per-profit ratio for those products is nowhere near what it is for fresh lumber. 

One possible answer is for federal, state and county agencies to greatly lower the permitting and other costs associated with removing dead timber.

Haider said she hopes that Gordon’s executive order opens the door for that.

“Logging is an expensive undertaking” and companies need incentive to start removing dead timber, without risking losing money on it, she said.

Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.