GRAFTON, N.Y. (NEWS10) — Loggers in the Capital Region are reeling after Finch Paper’s announcement that they’re stopping in-house pulp production and will no longer need to source wood from Northeast loggers. They say this change could lead to logger bankruptcies.
Stephen Day is an independent logging contractor with Day’s Timber Harvesting in Rensselaer County. He has sold pulp to Finch Paper for more than 15 years, and those sales make up roughly 1/3 of his income.
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Now, Day’s been told his lumber won’t be needed, and he says it’s a gut punch. The logs he sells to Finch Paper for pulp are mainly Hemlock, typically used for more highly processed products.
“Here in Grafton, we have a lot of shallow poor soil and we have a lot of shaky Hemlock, you know, and Finch Paper was the only market for that wood.”…