Posted on 06/04/2008 9:01:25 AM PDT by george76
Dead lodgepole pines turned into products from pellet fuel to pens.
millions of beetle- kill pines in the nearby hills and mountains could explode into a fire ...
But locals also realize that using the wood for beetle-kill products is just a start - and not a silver bullet.
"There's little stuff going on, but not near what we need," ...
But, still, he's grateful. "Small steps lead to big trips," ...
Dead and dying lodgepole acreage in Colorado has grown to 1.5 million since the first signs of the mountain pine beetle outbreak in 1996...
homes, property and lives could be lost if the potentially explosive timber burns. The burned land then could spur mudslides, dumping debris and sediment into municipal water and irrigation systems.
"A catastrophic fire would make Hurricane Katrina look like a picnic," ...
Aside from the U.S. Forest Service arranging for dead trees to be removed from federal land, officials here hope capitalism and entrepreneurial zeal will help as well.
The goal: make the dead trees financially attractive to loggers, who'd be more willing to harvest the stands of stricken pines and reduce the fire danger.
Enter the beetle-kill products, including furniture, log homes and a new wood pellet-fuel factory here.
(Excerpt) Read more at rockymountainnews.com ...
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How were the loggers/harvesters able to get permission from the environmental wackos to remove trees, even dead and diseased trees from USFS land?
Most USFS employees aren’t total idiots. The enviro-weenies only like looking at postcard-perfect hillsides. All the brown trees are ruining their photos.
Region 3 in the Forest Service (AZ and NM) has a good stewardship program going on the Apache-Sitgreaves Forest (northeastern AZ). This was the site of the Rodeo-Chideski fire. The locals put so much pressure on the greens because of the catastrophic loss of that fire, that the greens okayed the program to thin small diameter ponderosa. Total removal. Slash and all. A lot goes into chipping for wood pellets, some goes for posts and rails, some to laminated facades for a log-home simulated look. Some even goes to a small diameter lumber mill to be made into dimensional lumber.
Right now, the FS is footing some, if not most, of the bill, but as the markets emerge and the operators start making money, the FS will then start receiving money. In other words, they are paying to get you going. You have to get going, and eventually make a profit. A lot of jobs that went away are back and a lot of products are now being made from timber no one wanted.
Plus, the Forest is looking great. The FS and everyone involved in these projects looked at the White Mountain Apache's approach to their timber. Their forests didn't suffer the same damage the public forests did in the same fire.
I had to remove 15 beetle-kill trees on my property last year. I cut them up for fire wood.
If the Forest Circus follows its past pattern it will not allow cutting for firewood by private parties or by contractors. The dead trees will sit there until they burn or rot.
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