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Shared Stewardship in Idaho

By Community, News

Wildfire isn’t the only threat facing Idaho’s forests. According to the National Insect and Disease Risk Map, Idaho leads the country in the number of treed acres at risk of high rates of mortality from insect and disease by 2027. For every 1 cubic foot of wood harvested, 3 cubic feet die in our forests. High mortality rates lead to reduced carbon sequestration, increased wildfire risk and pose a threat to Idaho’s forest products industry and the jobs it supports in our rural communities. With 6.1 million acres at risk in Idaho, there’s a lot of work to do. In July, Governor Little announced two priority areas, encompassing over 4 million acres. Idaho Forest Group operates within these areas and is committed to supporting individual projects by sharing technology and data, adjusting capacity to meet demand, and lending expertise wherever needed. In December 2018, Idaho signed the nation’s first Shared Stewardship agreement with the U.S. Forest Service, pledging to double the number of acres treated to reduce wildfire risk and improve the health of our ailing forests. The concept of the Shared Stewardship policy is to allow states to define priorities and manage projects across land ownerships, utilizing collaborative decision-making that involves land managers and land users throughout the process. This agreement shaped a collaboration between Idaho Department of Lands and USFS Regions 1 and 4 to reduce fuels and wildfire threats around communities; create and sustain jobs; and improve the health and resiliency of the forest. The Idaho-USFS Shared Stewardship Agreement promises to double the annual acres…

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log truck drivers, help wanted, jobs near me, forestry, timber

Log Truck Drivers Needed

By News

Being a lumber manufacturer takes a lot more than milling wood. It involves sourcing logs, transporting the logs, manufacturing products, finding suitable markets, and transporting the products to the markets. All these roles require people to do the work. A labor shortage has become a major concern for almost all industries in the United States and truck drivers are one of the positions most unfilled. According to the American Trucking Association the United States is projected to be short 175,000 truck drivers by 2026. Log truck driving companies are facing the same challenge. Driving a log truck takes experience and special skills beyond that of a common CDL licensed driver and there are limited venues for developing these skills around the country, with none currently nearby. Schools have typically been underused because they require a significant financial investment and a log truck certification is not generally required to work. It likely remains that there are people interested in learning about driving a log truck who don’t feel confident in making a commitment without some understanding of what the job entails. In 2018 over 143,000 log trucks delivered logs to Idaho Forest Group’s (IFG) mills. Timely delivery to mill after the harvest of these logs is crucial to our operations. Logs that sit at forest sites too long lose value, are attractants for pests, hold up payments to landowners, and are potential fire hazards. As fire threat increases in the region, the recognition of this threat also grows, bringing with it more landowners wanting to manage…

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Idaho Forest Group Acquires Merritt Brothers Lumber Mill

By Community, News

(Athol, Idaho, April 10, 2018) – Idaho Forest Group (IFG), a lumber producer in the Inland Northwest, has acquired the Merritt Brothers Finger Joint mill located in Athol, Idaho. Erol Deren, IFG VP of Sales and Marketing, commented “This acquisition gives us the opportunity to learn the value-added finger-joint manufacturing process. It will enable further utilization of the fiber resource and compliments our other facilities making the most of the logs that we procure for our mills.  We will carefully evaluate the capital needs of this site and invest accordingly.” Buck and Wayne Merritt started Merritt Brothers Lumber Company in 1968 when they purchased an old sawmill in Priest River, Idaho.  In 1990 they bought the Athol site and eventually sold off their Priest River location. Herb Janhsen, VP of Merritt Brothers, congratulated IFG stating “We wish IFG a prosperous future. We are happy to see the mill continue to move forward and offer employment opportunities to our valued team members.  We are thankful for the hard work our employees have put in over the years.”  

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Your vote matters most in the primary. To switch affiliation, do it by March 9.

By Community, News

As published in the Idaho Statesman – read full article BY DAVID HIGH March 01, 2018 11:45 AM Updated March 04, 2018 05:15 PM Here’s the bad news for Idaho voters: If you miss voting in the primary election, you pretty much miss the election train. That’s because nearly all statewide officeholders in Idaho are selected in the primary election. Put another way, the primary election is when votes really matter. More specifically, recent history tells us that Republican primary results generally presage general election results for statewide offices. For the past 12 years, 100 percent of Idaho statewide political officeholders were decided in the Republican primary. If you go back 20 years, two Democrats were elected to statewide office: Marilyn Howard, superintendent of public instruction, and J.D. Williams, state controller. Four years later, only one Democrat — Howard — was elected. Since then, it’s been all Republicans. Unless you think Idaho has become less Republican over the last two decades — and with apologies to Democrats – it’s probable that all or nearly all of our statewide officeholders will be selected at the May 15 primary. Yet voter primary participation is inexplicably low. Statewide officeholders are elected every four years, the last time in 2014. The Secretary of State’s Office reports that 37.59 percent of Idaho’s voting-age population voted in the 2014 general election, but only 16.63 percent voted in the 2014 primary. As usual, all statewide office candidates selected in the Republican primary went on to win in the November general election. Think…

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