By Leo Quigley, AJOTThe log business at the Port of Olympia, WA, is on a roll now that Weyerhaeuser has completed the transfer of its log exporting business from Tacoma and Grays Harbor, WA, to the state capital. While the magnitude of the business in not as large as it was at one time in port’s history, it’s enough to allow Olympia to increase the level of employment on the waterfront while other West Coast ports are laying people off. In addition to the new Weyerhaeuser log handling facility, owned by the port, there are two other log operators at the port, Pacific Lumber & Shipping and Merrill & Ring and Holbrook Inc. that are now starting to look at growing the Korean market for logs. With the amount of experience that exists and Olympia’s central location the port is becoming the center of the log exporting business in the Northwest. Jim Amador, Business Development Manager at the port, said the Weyerhaeuser log export facility started operations at the beginning of the year with the arrival of the first vessel, but did not go into full-scale operation until May of this year. “We’re anticipating a vessel a month with Weyerhaeuser,” Amador said. But, there’s a possibility that this could become a vessel once every three weeks. “He said the port is also expecting a barge of logs per month from Canada. Vessels visiting the port to pick up logs include the Global Wisdom owned by NYK Line and the Lavieen Rose owned by Mitsui SK, which are capable of loading 5 ½ to 6 million board feet. As well, the Dry Beam owned by Toyo Shipping Line stops at Port of Olympia and a second Toyo vessel, the Eternal Athena is expected to visit the port later this year. All of these bulk vessels carrying logs are destined to Japan.
Port of Olympia
The increase in log business is the result of Weyerhaeuser having closed its export log handling facilities at the Port of Tacoma and the Port of Grays Harbor and the consolidation of the business at Port of Olympia. The reason Weyerhaeuser consolidated it operations, Amador said, is because Olympia is in the center of the state’s “wood basket.” “We’re centralized for all of their operations,” he said. The other port capable of loading large log carrying ships in the Pacific Northwest is the Port of Longview on the Columbia River, which has a Weyerhaeuser-owned export facility as opposed to Olympia that owns its own facility, built at a cost of nearly $5 million. One of the major reasons the log exporting facility has been a success is the effort that has been put in by ILWU (Local 47) employees and the Weyerhaeuser employees who operate the yard. “Our longshore has traditionally been in logs and breakbulk cargo,” he said. In fact the operators of the first vessel that came in to pick up logs at the port were extremely impressed with the productivity of the terminal. “That just showed them that they’d picked the right spot,” Amador said. Prior to the opening of the terminal there was considerable concern expressed by Olympia residents about the amount of truck traffic the new log export facility would generate. However, so far, Amador said there have been almost no complaints since the opening of the facility. One of the factors that has reduced the problem, he said, is the fact that the truck traffic generated by the terminal, roughly 300 trucks a day, goes against the flow of traffic during rush hours. However, even though the business generated by the terminal has been good for the port and the City of Olympia, Amador said it pales when compared the log traffic that was handled by the port in the 1980’s. At that time, he said, three berths were dedicated to logs at the port while, at present, only one berth is being used for logs.