I don't think NAFTA is entirely to blame for that. I am on the other side of the continent and the north side of the "line". We lost over half the lumber mills since 2009 (where I have data for), and many more earlier. And we also lost the rail lines where lumber was the main business.
UP-NS Agree to $85 Billion Merger
- Thread starter AdvancedApproach
- Start date
In Maine, a big portion of the lumber business went north. Today, lumber comes down out of New Brunswick via the New Brunswick Southern for consumption in the US.
butch_koch
Member
Remember when monopolies use to be illegal?
AdvancedApproach
Well-known member
NAFTA is solely to blame for that. People wanted cheaper products, but it came at a great expense to the economy and workers.
Where I live, we lost lumber mills because of protests over logging. Environmental groups protested every single proposed timber sale on US Forest Service no matter how badly it was needed for the health of the forest or how well set up and managed it was for selective cutting, even helicopter logging. It got so none of the mills could buy federal timber sales and they went under.
AdvancedApproach
Well-known member
That’s on them for not having some backbone and telling the protestors to kick rocks.
AdvancedApproach
Well-known member
So the federal laws were created due to NIMBYS protesting?
AdvancedApproach
Well-known member
The heck with those laws and all those people who wrote them. I'd just blatantly disobey it and thumb my nose at them just to see what they do.
In some ways I can see why the protesters did what they did, yet at the same time, they didn't understand the industry as it is today.
The lumber industry in New Hampshire died in the 1940s because of excessive cutting. What was once vast forests became desolate and barren hills and mountainsides with washouts and forest fires. These areas today are what constitute the White Mountain National Forest.
Today, there is a small lumber industry left that ships mostly by truck, although recently the Vermont Railway System has purchased the New Hampshire Central and the former Maine Central Mountain Division along with the former Boston and Maine mainline to Berlin, New Hampshire. They have recently started clearing brush and trees on the long dormant Mountain Division between Gilman, Vermont and Whitefield, New Hampshire with plans to handle outgoing lumber and wood products as well as other freight such as plastic pellets, ethanol, petroleum products, and general freight. They eventually hope to open the line up completely to St. Johnsbury in the future.
To the south, the owner of the Conway Scenic is looking to purchase the southern portion of the Mountain Division from Portland, Maine to Intervale. They already run some infrequent freight on the CSRR and this will extend the service. The Maine legislators are "taking this under review" with a lobbyist fighting for the rail-to-trail industry against rail restoration. They too plan to handle wood products from the region.
Overall, NAFTA did kill the industry up here by sending it over the border to Canada. It didn't help that the 1989-1992 recession put nails in the coffin for the paper industry. Today, there are only 3 paper mills left in Maine. Today, lumber is still cut up in Maine but most of it comes in from New Brunswick Canada via the NBSR. Interchange is done with the Maine Eastern.
UP-NS Merger News.
www.waterwaysjournal.net
Proposed Rail Merger Draws Pushback - The Waterways Journal
A coalition of powerful interests is lining up to oppose a proposed merger between two of the nation’s largest Class 1 railroads, Union Pacific (UP) and Norfolk Southern (NS). Opponents are concerned that Class 1 freight rail competitors CSX and BNSF might respond by merging, creating a...
www.waterwaysjournal.net
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