Daily edition
September 10, 2026
Prepared from public sources. Links lead to original material.
What matters this morning
- Colorado's largest sawmill has entered a 60-day clock. Neiman Enterprises has issued WARN notices to roughly 90 Montrose Forest Products workers while pursuing a buyer, and only two of the eight independent logging contractors that had been supplying the mill are still working with it.
- The U.S. International Trade Commission has made its final material-injury determination in the hardwood and decorative plywood case covering imports from China, Indonesia and Vietnam.
- The Forest Service has released the first dataset designed to show road-erosion and mass-wasting risk across its entire road system, giving project planners a national screening layer for watershed and fuels work.
- A 29,425-ton Fort Pickett timber sale in Virginia opens bids today, while a British Columbia Timber Sales offering in the Morice area closes on 25,010 cubic metres of predominantly balsam timber.
- Woodpack Global has released the first version of Crate Design System, bringing a Pallet Design System-style workflow to sheathed, cleated and basic lumber shipping crates.
Mills / Capacity / Procurement
Mountain West — Colorado
Montrose sawmill enters 60-day buyer search as contractor capacity starts leaking away
Neiman Enterprises has issued WARN notices to roughly 90 employees at Montrose Forest Products, Colorado's largest sawmill, with the 60-day period running through November 6. The company says the final outcome has not been determined and that it is trying to sell the operation as a going concern rather than simply close it.
The harder part may be rebuilding confidence around fibre and logging capacity. A buyer would need reliable, affordable long-term timber supply, while local reporting says only two of the eight independent logging contractors that had been working with the mill are still doing so; the others have already sought work elsewhere. All mill employees remain at work during the WARN period.
Government / Funding / Trade
United States — Hardwood Panels
USITC reaches final injury determination in hardwood and decorative plywood case
The U.S. International Trade Commission has determined that the U.S. industry is materially injured by imports of hardwood and decorative plywood from China, Indonesia and Vietnam that the Department of Commerce found to be subsidized and/or sold at less than fair value. The case excludes softwood structural plywood.
The determination moves the proceeding from investigation into the duty-order stage. For hardwood plywood importers, domestic panel producers, cabinet and furniture manufacturers, the practical issue now is landed cost and sourcing adjustment rather than whether the trade case will proceed.
Market Opportunities
Virginia — Government Timber
Fort Pickett sale opens bids today on 29,425 tons
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' Fort Pickett sale covers 199.5 acres in nine blocks and contains an estimated 29,425 tons. The mix includes 9,510 tons of pine sawtimber, 1,473 tons of pine chip-n-saw, 8,057 tons of pine pulpwood, 1,735 tons of oak, poplar and miscellaneous hardwood sawtimber, 3,344 tons of hardwood pulpwood and 5,306 tons of chips.
Item 1 is a 103.2-acre clearcut; Item 2 combines a 14-acre clearcut with 80.5 acres of thinning. Bids open at 1 p.m. September 10. The mandatory pre-bid meeting has already passed, so today's value is primarily as a procurement and buyer-appetite signal rather than a new bidding opportunity.
British Columbia — Morice
Doray Creek offering closes on 25,010 m³, 94% balsam
British Columbia Timber Sales' Doray Creek offering in the Morice area is advertised at 25,010 cubic metres over 77.8 hectares, with the volume estimated at 94% balsam and 6% spruce. The upset stumpage rate is $21.97 per cubic metre and the advertised term is 23 months.
Bids close September 10. The eventual result, if published, will be more useful than the upset rate itself: balsam-heavy sales can provide a clean local read on appetite for lower-value interior fibre and on how much competition remains in a constrained B.C. operating environment.
New Publications, Data & Tools
National road erosion and mass-wasting risk data
The Forest Service has released what it describes as the first dataset showing erosion impacts across all Forest Service roads. The national layer gives managers a rapid way to screen road-related erosion and mass-wasting risk when planning timber, fuels, watershed and access work rather than beginning every analysis from a blank map.
The agency says watershed specialists in Oregon, Washington and California are already using the data and saving many hours of analysis. That makes this less a research curiosity than a potentially useful pre-project triage tool for deciding where detailed field review deserves attention first.
Under the Radar
Industrial Wood Packaging — Design Software
Crate Design System brings an engineering workflow to wood shipping crates
Crate Design System has launched as dedicated software for designing sheathed and cleated crates and basic lumber box crates. The program can generate detailed designs, three-dimensional and exploded views, and standardized outputs using a workflow derived from the same general design-system approach long used in pallets.
The first release is still prescriptive rather than a full structural-analysis engine, which the developers describe as a future step. Even so, this is the kind of small ecosystem development worth noticing: better design software can reduce overbuilding, improve quoting consistency and move industrial-wood packaging toward more repeatable engineering rather than shop rules of thumb.
Opportunities worth watching
- Montrose is now a race between transaction timing and supply-chain erosion. A buyer needs not only timber access but enough logging and trucking capacity left in the basin to restart without rebuilding the contractor network from scratch.
- Watch the Fort Pickett and Doray Creek bid results rather than their advertised values. Bidder count and premiums over minimums will provide better local market information than the sale notices themselves.
- The Forest Service road-risk dataset could become a useful front-end layer for timber-sale layout, fuels planning and watershed review. The next question is how easily practitioners can move the data into ordinary GIS workflows and field prioritization.
Thursday Special Feature
Ernest Wells Blue: Forester, Ranger, Innovator
Ernest Wells Blue spent a career at the practical edge of forestry: fire control, forest protection, field innovation, and the day-to-day work of managing New York's forests. His story also reaches into the development of early firefighting equipment, the Adirondacks, and a generation of forestry that is now mostly remembered in fragments.
This illustrated project pulls those fragments together into a fuller portrait of Blue's career, including maps, archival material, photographs, and the larger forestry world in which he worked.
Special Opportunity
A few spots remain in the next Forest Business School Essentials cohort
The Forest Business School's six-month Essentials program begins October 7, 2026. The program is free to accepted participants through partner funding and is built for mid-career working-landscape professionals and small business owners in forestry, logging, wood products, land management, and related fields who want to improve how they work, lead, and run their organizations. Nearly weekly one-hour evening video sessions combine assigned reading/listening with peer discussion and practical application — no grades, papers, or busywork.
Interested in applying? Email Steve Bick directly → · Learn more at forestenterprise.org →
Featured Book
Timber Tempo: Project Flow in Forestry
A forestry-specific introduction to Critical Chain Project Management, built around the delays, bottlenecks and competing priorities that show up in mills, timber procurement, land management and agency work.
Look for a special feature each Thursday