Cascade: Town has hope two years after the mill closed

Cascade mayor Larry Walters spearheaded the effort to bring Forest Concepts LLC, manufacturers of FlowCheck , to the town as it transitions from a logging-based economy. FlowCheck is made from small-diameter timber and is used as for biodegradable erosion control.

Ken Dey
The Idaho Statesman

Mountain bikers pedal the trails at the new Tamarack resort about 40-minutes outside of Cascade, ID.

Tourism and outdoor recreation are two industries the town is looking to in order to revive its economy two years after the Boise-Cascade mill closed.

The citizens of Cascade are banking on logs and luxury to rejuvenate a town that seemed devastated when the Boise Cascade lumber mill closed more than two years ago.

Today, two symbols of the town´s future anchor both ends of town. At the southern end a fledgling business using small diameter logs to build products that prevent erosion is poised to bring new jobs to the community.

On the northern end a $3 million luxury hotel has opened its doors, ushering in what town leaders hope to be a new wave of tourism without totally changing the identity of the small mountain town that for decades was identified as one of Idaho´s quintessential lumber towns.

And across the lake from Cascade, near Donnelly, a new $1.5 billion ski and golf resort is taking shape.

Before the mill closed in May 2001, taking with it 78 jobs, the timber industry dominated Cascade.

Hand-painted green signs tacked on buildings proclaiming support for the timber industry still serve as a reminder of how important harvesting timber was to the community.

Even today, a trip to the grocery store offers a history lesson of Cascade´s timber roots; shoppers are greeted by old photos and a collection of crosscut saws hang from the walls.

But today the mill is gone — dismantled and hauled away by a company that claimed it was hampered by environmentalists and federal timber harvest policies and could no longer make money in the forests surrounding the town.

All that remains of the mill now are decades-old piles of wood chips that are slowly being carted away.

There was no shortage of fear and bitter feelings in the aftermath of the mill closure, but today a new sense of optimism pervades much of the town.

Instead of abandoning the town, many of its leaders have instead chosen to invest in it.

City and county leaders helped spur the development of a new industrial park that they hope will eventually bring much-needed jobs to the valley. The local RV Park owner just opened the new Ashley Inn, and even the local pharmacist is expanding his 30-year old business on Main Street.

“Right now we´re doing OK. Everyone is pulling together to try and make it work here,” Cascade Mayor Larry Walters said.

Walters and others are slowly turning a town away from its complete dependence on natural resources to a town that will depend on a mix of natural resource-based industries and a new emphasis on tourism.

“We don´t want to put all our eggs in one basket and depend on just one resource like we did with the mill,” Walters said. “That was a hard lesson, but a valuable lesson to learn.”

A new direction

For years Cascade wasn´t considered a destination town, despite one of Idaho´s largest bodies of water at its back door and a pristine setting in a valley ringed by mountains.

But with the mill gone, city leaders and business owners, say growing tourism seems the most obvious route to improving the town´s health.

Ashley and Katrin Thompson say their decision to build the Ashley Inn, an upscale 67-room hotel, was based on what they believe is an untapped source for tourism dollars.

The couple first came to Cascade more than a decade ago and opened up River´s Edge RV Park.

During the last decade the Thompsons have continued to increase the size of their RV park, and they saw the potential for an upscale hotel in the area.

“There is a lot of undiscovered potential in Cascade, but if there isn´t an upscale place to stay, people have no choice but to go on to McCall,” Ashley Thompson said.

Although the Thompsons say they didn´t factor the proposed Tamarack resort into their decision to build the hotel, they do believe it will be a benefit to Cascade and the rest of Valley County.

The couple´s decision to build the hotel brought more than 40 jobs to the community.

One of those jobs went to former mill worker Ron Lundquist.

When Lundquist was laid off from the Boise Cascade mill, he and 77 of his colleagues faced some tough decisions.

At 46, Lundquist found himself forced to make a new career move — something he wouldn´t have imagined doing while working at the mill.

“Your imagination is not as creative until you´re forced with making new decisions,” Lundquist said.

Now 48, Lundquist is still in Cascade and is the new manager for the Ashley Inn. He graduated this past spring with honors from Lewis Clark State College in Lewiston.

An upscale hotel in Cascade in some ways feels like a fish out of water, contrasting with the town´s working-class image, but the Thompsons and others believe the hotel is the start of a new direction for the town.

“It´s something we can hang our hat on,” says Bill Wheeler, who for more than 30 years has owned Wheeler´s Drug in downtown Cascade. “It will be an anchor business for us.”

Like the Thompsons, Wheeler believes in the town and its people.

“We´re a community of survivors, the last two years speaks for itself,” Wheeler said. “Initially there was a lot of emotion and a lot of fear and uncertainty, but there hasn´t been a mass exodus.”

Wheeler said his business depends on the support of local people, but he´s also banking on an increase in tourism.

Both of those factors prompted Wheeler to start the process of expanding his current location this summer by remodeling an existing building next to his store.

“I think our future is really good. We´re right on the threshold of some very significant growth in the area,” Wheeler said. “We´ve been discovered.”

A balancing act

Tourism may bring in new dollars to the community, but city leaders don´t want those dollars to drastically alter the makeup of their community.

“If all you have are businesses supported by the tourism industry, that´s what you become — a tourist town,” Walters said. “Businesses need locals to shop at their stores, buy gas, volunteer to be on committees, run for city council or mayor and attend churches. We need all that to be a community.”

Walters said the key is to find a balance that brings tourism but also brings industries that will encourage families to stay in the community year round.

“Tourism jobs aren´t the living wage jobs you need,” Walters said.

When the mill was operating, those who worked there earned between $16 and $24 an hour, wages that Walters concedes the community likely will never see again.

Any new industry that does come in would need to pay at least $10 an hour for a family to survive, Walters said. Ideally he´d like to see those wages develop into the $12 to $14 range.

Like much of rural Idaho, the unemployment rate is higher than the state average. Idaho´s unemployment rate now stands at 5.7 percent, but in Valley County, where Cascade is located, the unemployment rate sits at 8.4 percent. Although the rate is higher than the state average, it´s better than neighboring Adams County, which has one of the state´s highest unemployment rates at 15.6 percent.

The Cascade School District also hopes that something can be done to keep families in the community.

The year after the mill closed, the district lost about 70 students, dropping enrollment to 330. In the following year, enrollment picked up by 25. This year school officials had hoped for about another 6 percent increase, but instead enrollment dropped by seven students.

“We anticipated a little growth, but it didn´t materialize as we hoped,” said Superintendent Gene Novotny, adding that when growth fluctuates it can make it difficult to plan for class sizes.

Novotny said he´s hopeful of the town´s efforts to promote tourism and new industry, but how that will affect the district isn´t known yet.

“It´s really a difficult situation for us to determine what kind of results we´re going to have,” Novotny said. “We don´t know if we will have younger families with kids coming to set up businesses or retired people coming to the community.”

Small trees

At the moment, Walters and other leaders are hoping the source of those better-paying jobs will come from the town´s new industrial park that is anchored by a business called Forest Concepts.

With the city´s help and funding from federal grants, the Washington state-based company set up its business in Cascade not long after the mill closed.

“Cascade was the ideal place to go,” said Steve Thorson, the company´s director of business development. “The community understands wood products and is a community that needs help.”

The company uses small-diameter timber — 5 inches or smaller — to build a product called FlowCheck, which is used in forest restoration projects to prevent erosion.

The product has been well received by many federal agencies that have used it on restoration projects after major fires, but Thorson said it has been a challenge to grow the company.

The company shut down in November and didn´t open again until this summer. Thorson said the biggest obstacle to growing the company was the federal bureaucracy. Before federal agencies could start buying the product in any quantity, it had to be approved and placed on federal procurement lists.

With the help of Sen. Mike Crapo, the company was able to work through the maze of paperwork and land a spot on the list.

Earlier this month, the company won a contract to provide its product for use in restoration after this summer´s fires. Thorson said the contract is open-ended. Agencies can order the company´s product on a when-needed basis.

The company has already received a $25,000 order from the Forest Service that will be used for restoration on the Hot Creek Fire near Atlanta and the South Fork Fire east of Cascade, and Thorson said other orders are pending.

With the new work, Thorson said the company expects to add 4 or 5 more employees to the current staff of two.

Last year, the agencies spent about $144 million on forest restoration, and Thorson expects they will spend a similar amount this year. He hopes some of that money will be spent on the FlowCheck product.

“If we could get 1 percent of that, we could put 20 people to work in Cascade,” Thorson said.

Walters says the success of Forest Concepts will serve as an anchor to draw more businesses to the park.

He sees the potential for other businesses that use small-diameter timber like post and pole operations and furniture makers.

Ideally, Walters would like to see the park employ as many as 50 people.

Crapo said the community´s focus on small-diameter timber is a good move because of its availability.

“The reason the mill shut down is because the policies of the Clinton administration and litigation focused at stopping major timber cuts,” Crapo said. “The opposition is not as strong against thinning and removing smaller-diameter timber.”

Crapo said Cascade is an example of what can be accomplished in rural Idaho when something like a mill closure takes place.

“The people of Cascade have been absolutely wonderful in their attitudes and commitment,” Crapo said. “They didn´t wring their hands. Instead, they rolled up sleeves and went to work to solve problems they were faced with.”

To offer story ideas or comments, contact Ken Dey
[email protected] or 377-6428

http://www.idahostatesman.com/Business/story.asp?ID=48569