137 



damages are due my company as a result of the govenuneot's long delay in making the timber 

 held under coatract available for barvest. Ratlier than spend years in coun to resolve the fuQ 

 damage amount and seal forever the fate of my company, I call on this committee to pass this 

 legislation and provide my company a ray of hope for the future. 



Where are we today? The afieimath of one agency of the Department of Agriculture refusing to 

 perform on the contncts that were to be used to r^ay a loan set up by another agency of the 

 same departmcot has been devastating. By usmg our operating line of credit to fioance the 

 activities that should have been financed by the harvest of our Sec. 31S sales, we did not have 

 adequate funds avaOable to properly buy logs and market hunber from our xniQs. Vfben the 

 provid«r of our operating Uoe of credit lost confidence that the Forest Service would ever perform 

 on the Sec. 318 contracts, thev deypanded repayment of the loan. This forced the company to 

 liquidate alJ log and lumber inventory. From 190 employees in 1995, we are now down to 16 and 

 by August 31 that nun^)cr will be zero. 



The local bank which has stood behind us through the last 10 years is in fear of loang the federal 

 loan guaramee if they do not force us to payoff the mill loan. We have been required to solicit 

 proposals from auction companies for a liquidation of our mQIs. 



An interesting side issue is the retraining programs for miO and woods workers impletnented by 

 this administration. Most of our laid off employee have become participants in at least one if not 

 several of the federal and state ttmber worker retrainiog programs. While these programs began 

 as well intentioned, they constitute the final nail in the coffin of the small family owned sawmill 



