NORTHWEST
East Oregonian
A2
Thursday, October 7, 2021
Growing demand driving force behind Woodgrain expansion
By DICK MASON
The Observer
ISL A N D CI T Y —
A major Union County
employer is set to expand its
local workforce substantially.
Woodgrain Lumber &
Composites has announced
it will be adding 35 positions
at its particleboard plant in
Island City over the next
six months. This will boost
the number of employees
Woodgrain has at the plant
to about 153, an increase of
almost 30%.
“We are excited to
continue to invest in our
particleboard facility, as
well as our local community.
This is also an opportunity
to expand in the markets we
serve,” said Tracy Hayes, the
human resources manager
for Woodgrain’s Lumber and
Composites Division.
Woodgrain also employs
90 people at its lumber mill
in La Grande, bringing the
total number of people on its
Union County payroll, count-
ing administrative staff, to
218.
Applications for the posi-
tions now are being taken
and hiring will begin soon.
The 35 new employees will
be added in phases through
March 2022, Hayes said.
Woodgrain is expanding
its staff at the Island City
plant because home construc-
tion is increasing in the West,
Alex Wittwer/EO Media Group
Scrap wood and recycling products sit outside Sept. 29, 2021,
at Woodgrain Lumber & Composites in Island City. The busi-
ness is adding 35 positions at its particleboard plant.
Alex Wittwer/EO Media Group
A forklift operator moves finished plywood product on Sept. 29, 2021, on the shipping floor
of Woodgrain Lumber & Composites in Island City. The business is adding 35 positions at its
particleboard plant.
which is creating a growing
demand for particleboard
products needed for homes,
including furniture and cabi-
nets, Hayes said.
The particleboard the
Island City plant produces is
tailor made for specific uses
such as airport jet bridges
and tables for table tennis.
The plant was built in
1966 and was owned by
Boise Cascade throughout its
history before it was acquired
by Woodgrain in 2018.
Woodgrain also acquired
Boise Cascade’s La Grande
lumber mill at the same time.
Tom Lovlien, vice presi-
dent of Woodgrain’s Lumber
and Composites Division,
said he is optimistic and
excited about this hiring
initiative.
“It is an exciting time to
be a part of Woodgrain,”
Lovlien said in a press
release. “Our company has
continued to invest in its
facilities here in Northeast
Oregon, and our leadership
has complete confidence that
the particleboard team will
meet this new demand, while
maintaining both customer
and employee satisfaction.
This is a place people want to
be and we want them here.”
Forecast for Pendleton Area
TODAY
FRIDAY
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SATURDAY
SUNDAY
Hiring for the particle-
board plant positions will be
conducted for entry level and
supervisory positions. No
manufacturing experience
is needed for the entry level
positions, for Woodgrain
will provide all the training
needed. Wages for entry level
positions will start at $18.31
an hour.
“All of our positions
provide long-term fami-
ly-wage careers,” Hayes said.
Island City Mayor Dave
Comfort said Woodgrain’s
announcement is most
welcome.
“I think it is great news,
Mostly sunny
62° 36°
62° 38°
Times of clouds
and sun
Mostly cloudy, a
shower in spots
An afternoon
shower possible
PENDLETON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
65° 46°
53° 33°
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HERMISTON TEMPERATURE FORECAST
66° 36°
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63° 42°
OREGON FORECAST
ALMANAC
Shown is today’s weather. Temperatures are today’s highs and tonight’s lows.
PENDLETON
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
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Seattle
Olympia
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Longview
Kennewick Walla Walla
62/40
Lewiston
59/42
66/37
Astoria
58/42
Pullman
Yakima 62/35
58/39
64/40
Portland
Hermiston
63/44
The Dalles 66/36
Salem
Corvallis
63/38
Yesterday
Normals
Records
La Grande
60/29
PRECIPITATION
John Day
Eugene
Bend
63/40
61/36
62/36
Ontario
67/45
Caldwell
Burns
65°
52°
72°
42°
88° (2014) 23° (2012)
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
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Albany
61/37
0.00"
0.00"
0.12"
2.67"
1.73"
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WINDS (in mph)
64/44
63/31
0.02"
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8.82"
9.39"
through 3 p.m. yest.
HIGH
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TEMP.
Pendleton 58/29
63/40
24 hours ending 3 p.m.
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HERMISTON
Enterprise
62/36
67/41
61°
47°
70°
44°
89° (1933) 24° (1916)
PRECIPITATION
Moses
Lake
58/39
Aberdeen
58/34
61/39
Tacoma
Yesterday
Normals
Records
Spokane
Wenatchee
58/45
Today
Boardman
Pendleton
Medford
69/41
Fri.
WSW 3-6
WNW 4-8
WSW 3-6
NW 4-8
local businesses are able to
broaden their workforce
and provide good fami-
ly-wage jobs that continue
to add vitality and vibrancy
to our community,” Moore-
Hemann said.
Union County Commis-
sioner Donna Beverage
echoed this sentiment.
“This will be a big boast
for Northeast Oregon,” she
said. “An expansion like this
is exciting.”
Woodgrain, with corpo-
rate offices in Fruitland,
Idaho, is a family-owned
company founded 65 years
ago. Island City and La
Grande are among more
than 20 cities it has plants
and centers in throughout the
United States, including Pilot
Rock, where Woodgrain also
owns a sawmill.
Ruling blocks 900-acre logging project
MONDAY
By MATEUSZ
PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Partly sunny and
cool
not only for Island City
but for Union County in
general,” he said. “I know of
people who will benefit from
this expansion.”
The mayor said there is
some concern about how
McAlister Road in Island
City will hold up under the
heavier traffic load it will
shoulder as the 35 employ-
ees are added. Comfort said
he will work to make sure
steps are taken to keep McAl-
ister Road strong enough
to handle the added traffic
volume.
Su zzanah Moore-
Hemann, executive director
of the Union County Cham-
ber of Commerce, also is
encouraged by Woodgrain’s
announcement.
“We are always very
excited when any of our
ASH LA N D — A
900-acre logging project in
Southern Oregon must be
enjoined because its impact
on great gray owls wasn’t
properly evaluated, accord-
ing to a federal judge.
U.S. District Judge Ann
Aiken has ruled the U.S.
Bureau of Land Manage-
ment’s approval of the Grif-
fin Half Moon project was
“arbitrary and capricious,”
which means logging cannot
proceed until the plan is
revised.
Aiken has adopted a
federal magistrate judge’s
recommendation to block
the project for violating the
National Environmental
Policy Act, dismissing the
BLM’s objections that the
case was analyzed under the
wrong legal standards.
In 2018, the federal
government authorized the
vegetation management proj-
ect, which is east of Ashland,
to generate timber while
creating young forest stands
and reducing the forest’s
vulnerability to wildfire,
disease and insects.
The Klamath-Siskiyou
Wildlands Center, Oregon
Wild, Cascadia Wildlands
and the Soda Mountain
Wilderness Council filed a
lawsuit the following year,
claiming the project would
harm the Pacific fisher,
which requires dense canopy
closure, and the great gray
owl, which relies on older
forest stands.
Earlier this year, U.S.
Magistrate Judge Mark
Clarke in Medford agreed
with the environmental
plaintiffs regarding the great
gray owl but rejected their
arguments about the Pacific
fisher, a carnivore in the same
family as the weasel.
A broader “resource
management plan” for 1.2
million acres of BLM prop-
erty in the region dedicates
“a large network of reserve
lands for great gray owls”
and expects their habitat
to improve, but the agency
didn’t analyze the project’s
particular effects on the
species, Clarke said.
The agency’s decision
record “contains no meet-
ing notes, memos, reports or
other documentation” that
it specifically considered
site-specific impacts on the
owls, he said.
“Because the BLM failed
to consider an important
aspect of the problem of
threats to great gray owls, its
approval of the project was
arbitrary and capricious,” the
judge said.
As for the Pacific fisher,
the magistrate judge deter-
mined that BLM’s “consid-
eration of impacts” to the
species was “clearly and
separately identified” in
the agency’s environmental
assessment of the project, the
judge said.
The BLM’s analysis of
the project’s impacts on
the Northern spotted owl,
a threatened species, also
“properly functions as a
proxy” for the effects on the
Pacific fisher, he said.
SUN AND MOON
Klamath Falls
64/31
Forecasts and graphics provided by AccuWeather, Inc. ©2021
Sunrise today
Sunset tonight
Moonrise today
Moonset today
First
7:01 a.m.
6:24 p.m.
8:25 a.m.
7:19 p.m.
Full
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NATIONAL EXTREMES
Yesterday’s National Extremes: (for the 48 contiguous states)
High 97° in Zapata, Texas Low 21° in Yellowstone N.P., Wyo.
Oct 12
Oct 20
Oct 28
Nov 4
NATIONAL WEATHER TODAY
IN BRIEF
Wolf pack kills 12 ewe sheep
LA GRANDE — A wolf pack in Union
County north of Elgin has killed 12 ewe sheep
and injured two guard dogs protecting sheep
during the past week or so, according to the
Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The attacks are attributed to the Balloon
Tree Pack, according to ODFW investigations.
That pack’s breeding pair produced pups
for the first time in 2020, with at least three
surviving through the end of that year.
Attack on sheep
An employee of a sheep rancher found
three dead adult ewes on Sept. 29 on a private,
timbered pasture, according to ODFW.
Officials from ODFW and from the federal
USDA Wildlife Service agency arrived on
Sept. 30 and found four more dead ewes.
Wildlife Service employees then found three
more dead ewes on Oct. 1, and one dead and
one injured ewe on Oct. 1. Workers eutha-
nized the injured ewe that day.
All the sheep were in the same pasture.
Officials estimated the sheep were attacked
the night of Sept. 28.
ODFW employees examined seven sheep
carcasses on Sept. 30, three on Oct. 1 and two
on Oct. 4. All had pre-mortem wounds, with
tissue trauma up to two inches deep and tooth
scrapes consistent with wolf attacks on sheep,
according to ODFW reports.
Attack on guard dogs
On the morning of Oct. 1, a sheep herder
found two injured Kangal guard dogs on an
industrial timberland grazing allotment. The
herder told ODFW employees that at about
2 a.m. on Oct. 1 he heard an apparent fight
between his guard dog and an unknown pred-
ator, with barking and growling.
Biologists examined both guard dogs. One
had a 6-inch-long area of matted blood on its
throat and the left side of its neck that was
dripping blood. The dog was agitated and
could not be held for further examination,
according to an ODFW report.
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