I have some knowledge of the Klamath Nothern's mill situation. The mill has struggled the past few months with log supply. They almost ran out of logs in April and May. They have had to go to Northern California to obtain logs.

The biggest reason is the Forest Service does not offer up enough timber any more. One thing that most people do not know is that when the Forest Service says they cut lets say 50 million board feet of timber on X National Forest, this is not truly the case because they take the volume of all the small and defective logs that went for chips, the volume of branches and slash that is ground up for hog fuel, and the volume of all the firewood permits sold and back that number into "board feet", while this material was never saw logs. This may not be the case everywhere, but is sure is in the National Forests surrounding the mill.

The other factor is the price of wood chips. Wood chip prices are high and if the stands being logged are close to chip plants, it is worth more to chip average or marginal saw logs than to truck them past the chip plant to the mill.

The Interfor mill is actually two mills in one complex. There is a large log mill and the newer small log mill. It is a nice facility, but without a supply of something to put in it, it is not going to last. Hopefully things will improve and they will stay in business. If any of you are thinking about getting by the Klamath Northern someday, I would not wait. You never know how long a railroad can survive if they only have one shipper.