ELGIN — Boise Cascade avoided an all-employee layoff at the Elgin Plywood mill after resolving a wood chip scare earlier this month.

The company sent out public notice of an impending mill-wide layoff at the Elgin plant Wednesday, Aug. 16, through a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification. The letter forecasted the layoff to be long term, starting on or before Oct. 14, but didn’t include any information on why the mill’s operations were to be suspended.

“The reason for (the Elgin plywood plant’s) curtailment was that we couldn’t really find a place to put our wood chips,” Boise Cascade Communications Director Lisa Tschampl said.

Wood chips are a residual fiber leftover from the plywood manufacturing process that the company usually sells to pulp and paper mills in the Pacific Northwest.

After a handful of these mills — including a tissue paper mill in Scappoose owned by Canadian-based Cascade Incorporated that shuttered in July — were shut down earlier this year, Elgin Plywood faced a wood chip pileup. In addition to company closures, other pulp and paper mills have switched to using a different type of wood fiber, Tschampl said.

“There was nowhere to place these chips, and you literally can’t just pile them up in your yard forever and a day,” she said.

Tschampl said the plant produces about 50-60 truckloads of wood chips per week.

However, she said Boise Cascade was able to find an outlet for the wood chips, and there should not be any layoffs in October.

Oregon Rapid Response Coordinator Michael Welter said he was notified that Boise Cascade was able to negotiate a new contract to sell the wood chips elsewhere six days after the WARN was sent out.

Welter said companies with greater than 100 employees are required under the WARN Act to submit public announcements of near-future layoffs, and that oftentimes companies issue WARNs preemptively and as a legal precaution in case of the worst scenario that a layoff does occur.

“An employer shall not order a plant closing or mass layoff until the end of a 60-day period after the employer serves written notice of such an order,” the WARN Act reads.

The Elgin plywood facility, which opened in 1964, employees about 240 workers, Tschampl said. All of the employees at the mill are represented by the Southwest Mountain States Regional Council of Carpenters.

“We see a lot of times that companies will err on the side of caution,” Welter said. “(They) go ahead and file the WARN … In some instances, they’re able to avert the layoff.”

Boise Cascade has released WARNs for the mill prior to August 2023 for distinct and separate reasons. The preceding WARN was released at the end of 2022 due to supply and demand issues, Tschampl said. She and Council Representative for Southwest Mountain States Regional Council of Carpenters Todd Gorham said no workers were laid off from the previous WARN.

“In the world of making plywood, there’s just a lot of moving parts,” Gorham said. “We’re products manufacturing. It goes in cycles, and the people that have worked there a long time understand that.”

Tschampl said Boise Cascade was unsure how long the curtailment would have lasted, but that an indefinite pause in operations at the plant “doesn’t necessarily mean it would have been closed.” With the layoff averted, she said, for now, it is “business as usual” at the mill.

“We’re just happy (Boise Cascade was) able to avert the issue and keep the plant running so our members can continue to work and provide for their families,” Gorham said. “That’s the most important thing.”