For decades whenever an industrial facility closed in Montana, there was always someone to blame besides the owners, operators, board decisions or economic conditions.  That someone was all-too-often industry’s favorite whipping boy, the environmentalists.

But when two timber mills in western Montana recently announced closures they finally told the truth — they made business decisions based on a number of factors, none of which could be blamed on environmentalists, lack of logs, or the industry’s latest favorite scapegoat “serial litigators” filing “frivolous lawsuits.”

When the directors of Seeley Lake’s Pyramid Lumber announced the closure of the mill, which has been running since 1949, their statement cited “labor shortages, lack of housing, unprecedented rising costs, plummeting lumber prices, and the cost of living in western Montana have crippled Pyramid’s ability to operate.”

As Todd Johnson, son of the mill’s founder, said: “today’s crisis is much worse than what was experienced in 2000, 2007, and 2015.  There is simply no better solution for the owners than to shut the mill down permanently.”