MONTESANO — The Grays Harbor County Commission on Monday committed $225,000 from a special economic development fund for infrastructure in a move designed to keep Mary’s River Lumber Co. from moving to Lewis County. The money will pay for improvements to utilities at the East County Industrial Park near Elma so Mary’s River can relocate part of its operation there.

    Terry Smith, manager of the lumber company, said Mary’s River has been looking for locations to move its operations between Centralia and Longview on the Interstate 5 corridor. The mill and finishing facility employs 120 people.

Had the county not stepped up, the company was sure to move, Commissioner Terry Willis said.

    “We were about to lose them,” Willis said. “They had just had enough of the flooding.”

    Each winter as the water levels of the Chehalis rose, Mary’s Lumber, which is located along the river at the edge of Montesano, would get flooded.

    “All of their finished lumber gets wet,” Willis said. “They can reuse it, but have to stop and refinish it, which costs them a fortune to do.”

    The December 2007 storm stopped the mill’s operations for days. In January, the floodwaters rose so fast that it caught the company by surprise and more lumber than usual ended up damaged. The mill essentially became a pond.

    That was the last straw, Smith said.

    “We’ve been here since 1980 and it’s progressively gotten worse every year,” Smith said. “The channels out here are filling with silt and so the waters are getting higher. Years ago they used to dredge it and you didn’t have this problem as much.”

    Smith said the company is considering moving its finishing plants, some kilns and a processing plant to the East County Industrial Park, just east of Elma and visible from Highway 12. The mill and the rest of the operation would stay in Montesano.

    Smith said he’s not sure when the move will happen.

    “My personal opinion is we get this going as soon as possible,” he said. “We deal with moving lumber every year. Obviously, there’s going to be some baby steps here. Obviously, there are some large costs involved.”

    Willis said she got personally involved with the Mary’s River Lumber Co. when she heard they might be moving out of the county.

    “I made some phone calls for them to people I know in East County and got them matched up with John Evans, who has the industrial park there,” Willis said. “We need these jobs.”

    The county commissioners gave a verbal approval to spend up to $225,000 Monday morning during their staff meeting. An actual application for the funds will be approved later, Willis said. The money comes from a special economic development rebate the county gets from the state, using 0.09 percent of the state’s share of sales tax generated in the county.

    The funds will be spent on improving the industrial park and, specifically, for re-doing the water line that connects to the park. Willis said the water line must be re-done because it currently goes diagonally across the footprint of the new location, which doesn’t work for Mary’s River.

    Willis noted that last year the county chipped in $100,000 to do a $1 million sewer improvement project for the industrial park.

    “The dream of this park was to provide good jobs in East County,” Willis said. “It started 20 to 30 years ago and has been building up ever since.”

    Mary’s River Lumber, which has its corporate office in Corvallis, Ore., processes cedar for siding, along with other housing material, except shakes, Smith said. The Montesano location is the company’s only mill in Washington state.