MOOSE RIVER – A log shortage and a downturn in the housing market are being blamed for tough times in Maine’s lumber industry.

Moose River Lumber, which employs more than 80 people in this small town near Canada’s border, has had to shut down three times in the past two weeks because of a shortage of affordable logs. The mill will be going to four-day weeks until the situation eases, according to company officials.

The industry is experiencing tough times because there aren’t enough workers harvesting timber – both in Maine and Canada – for the mills that need it, mill officials said. At the same time, demand for dimensional lumber is down because of the decline in the housing market.

“It is very rough times right now, and you look into the logging magazines and they are predicting it is going to be tough for another year,” said Steve Gilboe, log yard supervisor at Moose River Lumber.

Peter Lammert, a marketing forester for the Maine Forest Service, said just about every type of mill that produces building products – mills that produce spruce and fir dimensional lumber, pine lumber mills and oriented strand board mills – has been affected by the housing downturn.

Usually, he said, demand for only one or two of those products suffers at one time.

“This is the first time in 32 years I have been watching the wood business that I have seen all of them head into the cellar,” said Lammert.

In the case of hardwood mills, Lammert said he has heard of American logs being sent to China, where they are milled and turned into furniture and sent back to the United States for retail sale.

Jason Brochu, vice president of Pleasant River Lumber in Dover-Foxcroft, said his company has come within a few days of running out of wood.

Years ago, lumber mills tended to buy logs grown largely on surrounding lands, mostly because it didn’t make sense to transport the trees farther, Brochu said. Now, mills are sometimes buying logs from hundreds of miles away.

That is particularly true of mills in Canada, he said, some of which have been forced to close because of log shortages and poor market conditions.

On a more hopeful note, Brochu said the reduction in capacity provides at least a glimmer of hope for the future – at least for those mills that can last until the housing market recovers.

“That is always the key, your staying power, and that comes down to mill efficiency and a level playing field,” he said.