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CHARLESTON -- A hardwood flooring manufacturer has agreed to acquire two sawmills from a West Virginia lumber company that shut down.
Mountville, Pennsylvania-based AHF Products said it will purchase Allegheny Wood Products sawmills in the Randolph County community of Norton and in the Greenbrier County community of Smoot.
AHF said in a statement that about 80 jobs will be saved at the two mills. More jobs are expected to be created in the region for loggers, truckers and suppliers.
The sawmills will augment the supply of lumber to AHF's solid wood flooring manufacturing facility in the Randolph County community of Beverly, the statement said.
The supply of eastern U.S. hardwood lumber is currently 65% of what it was prior to the coronarivus pandemic and 40% of that before 2007.
The sawmill purchases will supply 25 million board feet annually and recover all of the lumber supply that AHF would have lost due to the closure of Allegheny Wood Products, the statement said.
"The purchase of these two sawmills is a wonderful and smart investment," AHF President and CEO Brian Carson said.
The Norton sawmill, located off the Buckhannon Pike, joined AWP mills in Bruceton Mills, Kingwood, Moorefield and Petersburg in closing their doors Feb. 23.
Last year, reports circulated that AWP was in talks with potential investors in an effort to keep the company open.
In 1973, John and Patricia Crites founded Allegheny Wood Products Inc. with a single sawmill located in Riverton.
In the following decades, the company grew to be one of the largest producers of Eastern U.S. hardwoods, and eventually one of the largest hardwood lumber companies in the world, with exports entailing 30 countries worldwide.
In May 2023, Allegheny Wood Products withdrew its application for an air quality permit to build a log fumigation facility in Hardy County, which residents opposed.
The permit would have allowed the company to emit up to 9.55 tons per year of a neurotoxic gas which the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said can cause nausea, respiratory irritation and even death.
A March lawsuit filed Friday by James Beane of Princeton against Allegheny Wood Products seeks class-action status, unspecified damages and civil penalties.
Beane said he and other company workers at multiple locations were terminated effectively immediately on Feb. 23. The lawsuit alleges violations of the federal Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act, also known as WARN, which requires companies to provide 60 days' notice if they have at least 100 full-time workers. It also alleges violations of state wage payment law.
The Allegheny Wood Products closures came just a week after the surprise announcement that the Cleveland-Cliffs in Weirton will be shutting down within two months, with a loss of 900 jobs.