Peck: Weyerhaeuser land sale a 'disaster' for county
A “disaster,” is how Lincoln County Commissioner Mark Peck described the potential sale of 630,000 acres of timberland in northwest Montana.
Weyerhaeuser Company announced the pending land deal Dec. 17. It stands to receive $145 million in cash for the sale. Company officials expect the deal to be completed in 2020.
The vast swathe of land includes portions of Flathead, Lake and Sanders counties as well as much of the woodland southwest of Libby in Lincoln County, said Peck, chair of the board of commissioners. Most of it was originally given as land grants to the railroad companies, he said.
Peck levelled his blunt assessment of the sale during the board of commissioner’s Dec. 18 meeting.
Weyerhaeuser Company officials described the move in a press release as a strategic realignment. The company owns about 12 million acres of timberland across the country.
“The sale of our Montana acreage is part of our ongoing effort to strategically optimize our timberland portfolio,” said Devin Stockfish, Weyerhaeuser president and CEO, in a statement. “The transaction includes a diverse mix of softwood species and an existing 110,000-acre conservation easement which preserves public access in perpetuity.”
The official announcement of the sale declined to name a buyer, but Peck, chair of the board of county commissioners, said Georgia-based Southern Pine Plantations is purchasing the property. The company is a real estate, rather than timber, business, he said.
Peck worries Southern Pine Plantations will resell the vast tract of land to private owners, who will restrict or cut off access to the property. The company previously bought and then sold land to brothers and fracking magnates Dan and Farris Wilks in Idaho, he said.
An article in The New York Times earlier this year described the brothers as becoming “a symbol of the out-of-touch owner” in Idaho.
“In Idaho, as their property has expanded, the brothers have shuttered trails and hired armed guards to patrol their acres, blocking and stymying access not only to their private property, but also to some publicly owned areas. This has drawn ire from everyday Idahoans who have hiked and hunted in those hills for generations,” reported Times correspondent Julie Turkewitz.
Peck fears a similar situation in Lincoln County. Hunters, fishers, hikers and loggers all might lose access to the land in one fell swoop, he said.
The sale also potentially blocks Stimson Lumber Co. from continuing to buy up property around the county, Peck said. That would end the county commissioners’ hopes of seeing a new mill open up in the Libby area.
County Commissioner Jerry Bennett said that when he first got wind of the sale, he hoped it was Stimson buying up the land. The announcement came as a surprise to county commissioners and Stimson officials alike, Peck said.
“This is a threat to our economy, a threat to our heritage,” Peck said. “I’m a capitalist, but capitalism has to have a conscience.”
While Weyerhaeuser officials said they planned to keep their trio of manufacturing facilities in Montana running, Peck does not believe it. There is no way to keep them operating cut off from timberland, he said.
Given that the land sale is private, local officials only have so much leverage. Peck said he hopes to exert political pressure to convince Weyerhaeuser to reconsider the sale. He urged county residents to call him to discuss how to sway the company, which generated $7.5 billion in revenue in 2018.