Oregon Public Broadcasting

The logging group, Swanson, is closing a sawmill in Glendale, in Southern Oregon, and scaling back operations at its stud mill in Roseburg.

Fifty-five workers will lose their jobs.

The company says it's been hit with three problems at once.

First, the massive drop in home construction over the last two years. Second, the influx of lumber from Canada, which has led to a 30-year-low in prices. And third, says company vice president Chuck Wert, is the lack of timber coming out of federal forest lands.

Chuck Wert: "We have no idea what kind of a long-term program for timber there's going to be. So it's virtually impossible to plan around a federal timber supply."

The state forestry department just announced that last year Oregon saw the smallest timber harvest since the great depression.

Wert says the studmill in Glendale will be mothballed with the loss of 55 jobs. 

He says the company will do its best to find work for some of those employees at its nearby veneer mill. But no extra jobs will be added.