Field Trip - Bell Timber, Inc. Pole Operation
On April 27,
2022, twenty Columbia County Small Woodlands Association members visited the
Bell pole operation in Longview, WA. The
tour was coordinated by Mark Dreyer and hosted by Bell Operations and Resource
Manager Mike Luttrell. Bell is a
family-owned company that has been in business for 112 years! They have several operations in the USA and
in Canada and have been in Longview since 2019.
The Longview operation is massive, about 25 acres with room to expand.
At Longview,
poles measuring 30 to 125 feet are received, scaled, barked, peeled and sorted
before they are shipped by rail car to The Dalles where they are kiln dried and
treated. The poles processed at Longview
are nearly all Douglas-fir. (Very few
cedar poles are available in our area although suitable cedar poles do occur
near the coast and farther north in Washington and Canada.) The poles are moved
by rail to markets east of Oregon and Washington. Most of the production is used as electric
utility poles and Bell is actively seeking to purchase suitable timber.
Their
website: https://blpole.com/
