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Show One-Week Shutdown To Start Monday At Kaibab PANGUITCH Half the employees at Kaibab Industries Panguitch sawmill are facing a one-week one-week shut-down starting Monday, July 20 and may face another longer shutdown in October if more timber doesn't become available. The move will affect approximately 35 of the sawmill's 73 employees, a critical number in rural Garfield County where the recent closure of Escalante Sawmill in Escalante has already had a dramatic impact on its local economy. According to Phoenix-based Kaibab Industries' president Donald E. Olson, it is the first time in the company's 40-year history that it has become necessary to shut down two of its lumber manufacturing operations in July due to its diminishing and uncertain supply of raw materials. Kaibab will also shut down its sawmill in Fredonia, Ariz. Many Fredonia employees of the company live in nearby Kanab, Utah. Olson said that Kaibab currently has only a three-month supply of timber for its sawmill operations compared with the late 1980's when a two-year supply of timber under contract was typical. "It is extremely difficult to run a business efficiently when there is such grave uncertainty about a sustained level of raw materials," Olson said. Recently, the U.S. Forest Service signed a decision notice to sell the Burnt Saddle Timber sale on the North Kaibab National Forest. Olson said if the company is the successful bidder there will be sufficient timber to operate the Fredonia and Panguitch sawmills well into 1993 providing the sale is not appealed. "Unfortunately," said Olson, "the North Kaibab has one of the highest timber appeal percentages in the country. In the last two years, 97 percent of the volume of timber put up for sale by the U.S. Forest Service in that area has been appealed. Ultimately, each appeal was denied," he said. "As difficult as the July shutdown will be for our employees and the rural communities in which we work and live, we cannot afford to sit back and simply hope there will be no appeal this time." he said. According to Olson, the company is currently exploring a number of options which, if successful, will prevent a second, longer shutdown in October. Olson said the company has already scaled-down scaled-down its operations as far as prudently possible with its move in April 1991 to a one-shift operation at its Fredonia sawmill, the last of the company's facilities to go on one shift. As a result of that move, they were nevertheless forced to lay off 90 employees. The July shutdown will not affect the company's sawmill operations in Payson, Ariz., Olson said. "Longterm we are cautiously optimistic that we see a fair and balanced approach to timber harvesting on the national forests in the Southwest. We are strongly committed to good forestry based on good science which enhances all the uses of the forests. In the long-run, long-run, a healthy forest products industry will mean healthy forest eco-systems," said Olson. Founded in 1952, Kaibab Forest Products is a subsidiary of Kaibab Industries, a multi-resource company comp-any headquartered in Phoenix. Kaibab Forest Products directly employs 350 people. The company produces high quality lumber products and garden and specialty products. v '.' r : -,'.'' i t - rr :;y i IK; v - - ' - o ". ' "' - .-, V jj :.; -A 1 : fJt ' ' ' ' - . V:. Ute Indian spiritual leader Lacee Harris who will pronounce a blessing on the old Panguitch high school building to be used as site for proposed Panguitch Pavilion. Harris chats with Tom Firstraised, in traditional Indian attire. |
