Circle DE Lumber Site - Klamath Falls, OR - Super Fund Sites on Waymarking.com

The Circle DE Lumber Superfund Site is a former home to a logging operation, Circle DE Lumber, that operated for many years in Klamath Falls before shutting its doors for good in 2002. The 'DE' in the name contains the first two initials for Dan and Eloise Brown, the couple who owned the company. There's an article from the local paper, Herald and News, that discusses the deconstruction of the company's warehouse and shop, which contains thousands of board feet of old growth timber from a number of trees that were logged around Southern Oregon. The article says the following:

Most building removal projects take a few days or weeks. Not the former Circle DE lumber mill. The careful deconstruction of the former Circle DE lumber mill - bordered by Altamont Drive, the OC&E state trail and Crosby Avenue - began in April and is expected to last another three months as crews remove the 80-year-old, long vacant mill piece-by-piece. "It's very strategic," said Richard Harrison, owner of HSI, a Klamath Falls construction company contracted to remove the 74,000 square foot building. "You have to do everything backwards." The former mill is being exactingly deconstructed to preserve as much of its Douglas fir lumber and other features, such as tresses, as possible. Dan McKay of South Carolina, who buys old buildings around the nation, plans to resell the mill's high-valued wood to a variety of buyers. "The old-growth has a lot tighter grain materials," McKay said. "The patina and the wood characteristics are really evident." He said the wood will be sold to builders, designers and architects throughout the U.S. and world for use as wood flooring, walls, beams and other features in high-end housing projects. He said buyers in Scotland, Ireland, Alaska and other U.S. locations have already expressed interest in wood from the Circle DE. Although unsure how much material will be recycled, he estimates the mill could produce 500,000 to 600,000 board feet of lumber.

Living in Klamath Falls, I know that another local wood products company, Jeld-Wen, bought this property from Circle DE Lumber not knowing that there were large amounts of hazardous waste materials that had seeped into the ground over the decades from previous logging operations by Circle DE Lumber. DEQ ordered Jeld-Wen to begin the proper removal of this hazardous waste, even though the environmental damage wasn't Jeld-Wen's doing. I'm assuming waste removal is still going on today.

On a personal note, my ex-father-in-law worked at Circle DE Lumber for over 20 years and told me many stories of his days logging lumber out of the many forests all over Southern Oregon and Northern California.