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Date Posted: 10:04:10 04/09/01 Mon
Author: Adv Reporter
Subject: Sawmill to reopen under tribal ownership

Sawmill to reopen under tribal ownership




By:Michael Shinabery, Staff Writer April 06, 2001





Michael Shinabery/Daily News

White Sands Forest Products, devoid of activity after last year's closure, is gearing back up for processing logs after its purchase on Monday by the Mescalero Apache Tribe. The mill was producing about 30-million board-feet per year before closing.

An Alamogordo landmark that once employed 150-180 people, and put $7-8 million annually into the economy before closing last year, has been purchased by the Mescalero Apache Tribe.

White Sands Forest Products, Inc. (WSFP) - long known as "the sawmill" - went out of business when access to logs on the Lincoln National Forest steadily declined after WSFP lost access to timber on the Lincoln. In 1993, the Mexican spotted owl was listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. The listing eventually shut down logging and forced WSFP to subsist on small, part-time contracts with private property owners.


On July 7, in Weed, then-WSFP General Manager Mark Hare told U.S. Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) that the company had "been nearly without logs for seven years."


Yesterday, however, Mescalero President Sara Misquez said the Tribe would resume operations this year.


"The Tribe expects to hire at least 30 to 50 employees at the sawmill within the next six to eight months, and hopes to be able to employ an even greater number as the mill returns to full operation," the Tribe announced in a press release.


To Alamogordo Mayor Don Carroll, the announcement means "a good boost for the economy and," he said, "I think good for the ecology of the area to see that the logging industry may not be dead in Otero County."


"The reopening of the sawmill will help local forest management and will bring back jobs in the communities around Alamogordo," Misquez said. "The Mescalero Apache Tribe has tried to be a good neighbor, and we want to keep the local economy strong."


Carroll concurred.


"Alamogordo's always had a good relationship with the Mescalero Tribe," he said.


The Mescaleros, a sovereign nation, have harvested their forest for decades, maintaining a sustainable-yield timber program. Logging proponents such as Otero County Commissioner Michael Nivison have pointed to the Mescaleros' forest as a model of good management of forest resources and health.


According to Mescalero Forest Products General Manager Jimmy Bridge, Mescalero "made up between one-third and one-half of the production at the White Sands mill before it closed in July 2000."


Of every logging dollar from timber cut on the Lincoln, county roads receive 12-1/2 cents, and 12-1/2 cents go to New Mexico schools. Since the 1980s, Nivison said "the county's receipts ... have declined 91 percent" and in 2000 he said "we got zero receipts."


The question on Alamogordo City Commissioner Don Cooper's mind today was whether any former employees remained in the area that could be rehired.


"Their experience and their familiarity with that mill would be really great for (the Mescaleros)," Cooper said. "I'd just love to see as many as the old employees that are there, to be able to get back to work there."


In July 2000, Lupe Martinez at the New Mexico Department of Labor (NMDOL) on Alaska Avenue said the department would "be looking in to the prospect of retraining programs" for former employees.


This morning NMDOL Area Director Eddie Beagles said there are former employees still in town.


"First thing, they have to come in and talk with us and qualify," Beagles said. "We have to base it on the local labor market information as to what job openings are available out there. Right now it looks very promising, as they open and start (producing) logs."


ŠAlamogordo Daily News 2001

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