Ken Thomas has been harvesting lumber from forests in Stanley for over 32 years. Slicing through the hardwood with his sawblade and moving it with heavy equipment has long been committed to memory.
But these days, he’s consumed with the thought of what to do next, when he pulls these 20-foot logs out of the forest and looks for a buyer, now that his longtime purchaser is pulling out of the game — at least temporarily.
Earlier this month, the AV Nackawic mill announced it will temporarily shut down at the end of October while the company assesses its options for the future. The mill owner, AV Group, had already stopped purchasing wood in August.
That has harvesters like Thomas, who previously sold 40 per cent of his products to the mill, now contemplating his own options and what to do with all of that hardwood.
'There's going to be a long-term ripple effect,' woodlot producer says:
Ken Thomas, who harvests private woodlots, has had to lay off one employee and sell a machine after the AV Nackawic mill stopped taking his mixed hardwood.
"It's a challenge, the low-grade product that that mill took, there's not too many homes for it," said Thomas.
"So the problem now is everybody's going to be chasing products that they can sell, which is going to put a lot of pressure on the mills that are still buying to meet everybody's obligations."
Because of these new challenges, Thomas has had to lay off one of his employees and sell one of his harvesting machines.
"It was a very tough decision. He was a good employee," said Thomas. "I just wasn't going to be able to use it as much as we had been, so I had to make that decision."
But what concerns Thomas more than where he can sell his wood is how much new wood is going to be on the market.
"The sawmills in the province are only gonna be able to sell, buy and sell so much product," said Thomas.
"If all of a sudden there's an influx of products that they weren't expecting, is that going to displace guys like me?"
Minister allows temporary Crown wood export to U.S. and other provinces
New Brunswick's Crown woodlots are divided into 10 sections, licensed out to the four largest wood processing companies in the province: AV Group, J.D. Irving Ltd., Twin Rivers and Interfor.
If the Nackawic mill closes permanently, there will be about 257,000 hectares of Crown land licensed to AV Group that will be up for grabs.
"It's absolutely vital that, that particular wood supply has an attachment to that geographical location where the AV mill is," said Minister of Natural Resources John Herron.
"Without that there, there isn't really the value proposition or the wood basket to actually supply a facility in that nature."
The Crown land is licensed to these companies as a secondary source to pull from after buying from private woodlot owners.
Natural Resources Minister John Herron said some Crown wood is allowed to export to the U.S. and Canada while the department works on solutions.
In the meantime, while the province decides the next steps for the licence, Herron has allowed the mixed hardwood cut and grown for the Nackawic mill to be exempt from regulations keeping it in the province.
About 60 per cent of that wood is allowed to move outside of the province.
This includes sending New Brunswick's Crown wood to Quebec, Nova Scotia and the U.S. for processing.
"That was its principal home; we don't have that at the moment," said Herron.
"I've authorized temporary, emphasizing the word temporary, export permits for wood to leave the province."
Green Party Leader David Coon said this should be figured out sooner rather than later.
"That is a huge loss to New Brunswick if they're getting special permission to export wood," said Coon.
"That's crazy because you want to add value to the natural resources that we're utilizing the province and not just export raw natural resources out of the province."
Because Thomas is retiring soon, he is not too worried about where this will all end up, but he still has his concerns.
"It's a good career; I love what I do," said Thomas. "I love working with woodlot owners, and, for the most part, contractors are pretty resilient. We'll find our way around this and we'll survive."
