An Arizona sawmill that has employed southern Utah residents for some 50 years will plane its last log before calling it quits on Wednesday.
The 35-acre Kaibab Forest Products' sawmill in Fredonia, Ariz., just south of here, has laid off 200 employees in recent months, including the 23 remaining workers that will walk out the gates for their last time this week.All that's left to do is sell off the hundreds of lifters, loggers and other equipment at an auction, scheduled for April 25.
In the final week of operation, a single forklift was moving the remaining lumber into small, 6-foot stacks that once obscured the horizon. It's a stark contrast from the once-bustling mill, Fredonia's largest employer.
At its peak, the mill moved 50 million board feet of raw logs, employed 300 people and brought millions of dollars to the economies of the Utah-Arizona border towns of Kanab and Fredonia.
Officials from Kaibab Forest Products and the U.S. Forest Service attribute its closure to a lack of economical timber, environmental appeals of proposed timber cuts and a sensitive species called the goshawk.
Up to 40 of the mill's employees will be hired at the Kaibab Forest Products' Panguitch sawmill. But that still leaves 160 workers looking for jobs.
"Most are saying, `Hey, that's the way it is. You might as well go on with your life,"' said logging supervisor Kurt Brinkerhoff, who has worked at the mill for 38 years. "What good does worrying do?"
But Brinkerhoff acknowledges he is worried about some of his once hundred-strong crew.
"There are a lot of laborers out there who have worked here their entire lives, and they don't have the experience," he said. "They're loyal workers, but some of them can't even read. What are they going to do?"
Local officials say the mill's closure has created both economic and social problems. The mill's payroll, for example, once totaled $6.3 million, with the average Kaibab employee earning $15 per hour.
The unemployment rate of both communities is estimated to increase from 8 percent to 12 percent, a figure expected to impact other businesses.
"All we can do now is depend on the tourists," said Velma Pratt, an employee at the Fredonia Texaco. "This will put some stores out of business."
What's more, the Fredonia-Moccasin School District, which operates on a $1.8 million budget, faces a $400,000 shortfall from tax revenue on the mill.
"We might end up having to raise taxes," said district business manager VeRene Tait. "And people are being laid off and making less money. It's a tough situation."
Fredonia Town Marshal Mike Mellor expects drug use to increase in the coming months, and mental health officials say domestic violence and depression are pervasive problems.
"There seems to be an increase in domestic violence from the pressures of being out of work," said Dennis Jones, a therapist at Southwest Utah Mental Health in Kan- ab. "Most of these people have been doing this all their life, and to have it suddenly taken away is very shocking."