Weyerhaeuser sells its Montana timberlands for $230 an acre

Last week Weyerhaeuser announced it would sell 630,000 acres of its lands in Northwest Montana, sending shockwaves through the conservation and local communities, as fears that public access and timber supplies would be cut off.

The company in a press release on Dec. 17 did not reveal who the buyer was in the $145 million deal, which liquidates Weyerhaeuser’s landholdings for a mere $230 an acre.

But Lincoln County Commissioner Mark Peck learned the buyer was Southern Pine Plantations, a Georgia-based real estate company that specializes in timber and woodlands for sale in southern states.

Peck called the deal “a disaster.”

Peck expressed grave concerns that Southern Pines would, in turn, sell the land to buyers like fracking magnates Dan and Farris Wilks, who own lands across the West.

According to the 2018 Land Report, a publication that tracks large landowners across the U.S., the brothers own about 702,000 acres of land in several states, though they had placed several large ranches in Montana they own up for sale in the past year.

The Wilkses have gated Forest Service roads that cross their lands in Idaho, blocking off public access.

On Saturday, Southern Pines acknowledged it was the buyer, but also claimed it had no plans to restrict public access.

“In light of fast-developing speculation across the state, Southern Pine Plantations can confirm that we have entered into a purchase and sale agreement with Weyerhaeuser for its existing Montana timberlands. While we can’t provide specifics before the deal closes, SPP has no plan to change the long-standing practices of the prior owners related to public access, forest management, grazing, existing outfitting agreements and conservation easements, and other programs. We can’t comment further at this time, but we felt it was in the public interest to provide this assurance to concerned Montanans,” attorney James Bowditch said in an email to the Hungry Horse News.

Peck was unimpressed.

“Words are cheap. I don’t believe it,” he said.

Southern Pine Plantation is a real estate company, not in the timber industry, Peck said. Unless they have a team of foresters or plan on changing their business model, they cannot manage the land, he said.

Instead, he worries the company will sell it off to private owners who will restrict access.

On its website, Southern Pine Plantations lists land for sale in Florida, Georgia, Mississippi and South Carolina ranging from 317 acres for $602,300 to 7,611 acres for $9,133,200.

“At some point in time, they’re going to have to get a return on their investment,” Peck said. “They don’t own any mills, they don’t have any forestry people and you’re just not going to make that money back letting people hunt for free. But I could be wrong.”

About 111,000 acres of Weyerhaeuser’s land holdings in Montana already have conservation easements on them that were brokered years ago when Plum Creek Timber Co. owned them. Plum Creek merged with Weyerhaeuser in 2016.

Those easements restrict subdivision of the land and assure public access on Weyerhaeuser lands in the Thompson-Fisher River drainages.

Generations of Montanans and hunted and fished on those lands, enjoying public access through the state’s Block Management program. The program assures public access, while Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks game wardens help patrol and investigate crimes on the lands, explained FWP Region 1 spokesman Dillon Tabish.

The Block Management Program is negotiated annually with landowners. Weyerhaeuser’s annual agreement is set to expire in May — the second quarter of 2020, which is the same time the land deal with Southern Pine Plantations is expected to go through.

Weyerhaeuser currently has 598,000 acres of land under the state block management program. Tabish noted that generations of sportsmen have been hunting on those lands.

He said FWP had been negotiating an easement of about 7,000 acres of lands near the Lost Trail Wildlife Refuge prior to the sale announcement. Now that deal is in doubt.

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.

“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.

But if Southern Pines actually continues to manage the land for timber, it could still provide mills with the needed product.

The real question is why Weyerhaeuser sold the property for almost nothing.

“Selling land for that price makes you wonder what else is in the deal that hasn’t been talked about,” Todd Morgan, director of Forest Industry Research at the University of Montana’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research said. “For example, they may have sold it on the condition that they get to continue having access to the timber for their mills.”

When Plum Creek sold hundreds of thousands of acres it owned in the Swan Valley to the Forest service and other entities, that deal came with a 10-year fiber agreement.

Regardless, representatives from other organizations say if they knew the land would sell for that cheap, they would have been putting in their own offers years ago.

“I think plenty of conservation organizations would have been making an offer on that parcel if they knew it had been going for that price,” Tabish said. “We had no idea Weyerhaeuser was trying to sell it.”