YAKIMA – The owners of a Yakima plywood mill have announced plans to close it Aug. 5, signaling the end of a Yakima landmark.
Officials from Frontier Resources, the Eugene-Ore.-based parent company to Yakima Resources, said in a statement Thursday that the mill could no longer keep up with increased competition from cheaper wood products, imported plywood and the problem of scarce timber.
The closure marks the end of a Yakima landmark that began in 1903 as Cascade Lumber Co. and leaves 225 workers without jobs.
Employee Roberta Perez, 50, spent Thursday morning drinking coffee and celebrating her 19th anniversary at the mill. A half-hour later, she found out the mill was shutting down in 60 days.
“All day long I’ve been thinking, ‘What am I going to do?’” she said.
Frontier Resources bought the 240-acre Yakima mill complex from Boise Cascade Corp. in 2004. At the time, company officials said they were in Yakima for the long haul.
A year later, Frontier announced it would shut down its sawmill, citing an inability to compete in the timber industry. The closure cost 116 sawmill workers their jobs, but the plywood mill remained open.
Union officials said the plywood mill has been temporarily shut down for the past two weeks due to a market downturn. In a letter to the union Thursday, company officials said they would officially inform employees of the closure when they return to work Monday.
Rumors were circulating about the plywood mill’s closure, but most workers did not expect the closure to come so soon, said Sherry Scott, area representative for the Western Council of Industrial Workers, which represents the plywood mill workers.
Several calls to Frontier Resources were not returned Thursday. A company official did not immediately return a call seeking comment Friday.
Washington once led the nation in plywood produced from softwood. But the industry has shrunk in the face of competition from newer products.
“It’s very, very hard to think about Yakima not having a mill there. It’s been over 100 years,” said Mike Pieti, who once worked at the sawmill and still has relatives who are employed at the plywood mill.
“An awful lot of family and friends have worked there. It’s hard to contemplate the city without it, but we have no control of what employers want to do,” he said.
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