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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Beetle kill gives industry new life
By Jason Blevins
The Denver Post
Article Last Updated: 11/15/2007 06:07:09 AM MST
Caption 1: Mark Mathis, the president of Confluence Energy in
Kremmling, traverses loads of pine logs piled high on the land where he is
erecting a $9 million, one-of-a-kind plant that will ball heat-producing pellets
out of beetle-killed timber. (Post / RJ Sangosti)
Caption 2: Meet The Bettle
On the listing steps of his cluttered office trailer, Mike Jolovich spreads his
arms wide, as if to embrace the muddy yard of timber, wood chips and machinery
at his Ranch Creek Ranch sawmill outside Granby.
"I've staked my whole career, everything I own on what you see today. It's all a
big gamble," he said, looking over a cavernous warehouse for a new computerized
sawmill that will soon be used to create log homes. "What you see is
three-quarters of a million dollars' worth of equipment. ... It's all gambled on
people, it's all gambled on the market."
And it's all gambled on the pine bark beetle.
As countless bark beetles the size of this "i" ravage the state's ample stands
of lodgepole, dozens of big and small dreamers are vying to eke their fortune
from the state's surging tide of beetle-ravaged timber.
Their efforts won't come close to using up the acres of deadwood. But it is a
start.
Some of these entrepreneurs are felling trees, seeking to revive the state's
timber industry. Others use the wood, tinted blue from a fungus the beetles
inject into the pine, for cabinets and trim.
There is an effort to burn shredded beetle kill to generate heat and electricity
in small-scale "energy parks." And in Kremmling, Mark Mathis is pressing
energy-saving pellets from the wood.
"It's unfortunate, and I'd just as soon have a healthy forest," Mathis said as a
trio of earthmovers scraped dirt where he is erecting a $9 million,
one-of-a-kind plant that will ball heat-producing pellets out of beetle-killed
trees.
Mathis admits he is overbuilding to meet demand for pellets, which burn in
special stoves more efficiently than logs and emit little smoke.
"Our intention is to build it and they will come," he said. "In my opinion there
is opportunity in every natural disaster. You just have to ferret it out."
Dennie Ibbotson, a woodworking artist from Evergreen, is
burnishing the wood's rich blue tint to create doors and signs. The hue - which
many artisans are tapping for unique ceiling panels, cabinets, exterior siding
and even kitchen backsplashes - emanates from a tree-killing fungus beetles
carry from tree to tree. It's the reason these trees die.
"I'm just trying to make something good out of something so bad," Ibbotson said.
"We lost the war. The beetles won. At least I can carve some beauty out of our
defeat."
State and federal forest managers are fighting just as hard to find any benefit
in the ruins left by nature's little loggers, who as of 2006 had infested
600,000 acres of the state's million acres of lodgepole.
Forestry officials predict that, ultimately, 90 percent will be infested. Now,
the strategy is largely focused on reducing the chance of catastrophic wildfire
by removing dead trees. The question: What should be done with the fallen trees?
For the past few years, the answer has been to shred them into landfill-destined
chips.
"Chipping should be the absolute last resort," said Summit County's Gene Dayton,
who recently acquired his second Finnish lathe - one that he helped design -
that mills, in minutes, just about any size tree into usable lumber.
He recently sculpted arrow-straight street signs and lightposts for a
development in Grand County and is stockpiling beetle-kill lodgepole to build an
extension of a Summit County school.
Entrepreneurs like Dayton are reinvigorating a timber industry crippled by two
decades of anti-logging sentiment and a bustling, subsidized timber industry in
Canada. Fifteen years ago, Colorado and Wyoming were home to more than a dozen
high-capacity sawmills. Today there are two large sawmills in the two states.
The dwindling number of sawmills also whittled the number of loggers and
timber-transportation companies in the state.
"It took more than a decade for this state's timber industry to wither and die,"
Jolovich said. "And it took more than three decades to build it up. Now ... we
have no place to handle all this timber. It's shameful."
The Forest Service has big plans to remove the beetle-razed trees from
Colorado's hillsides. It is relying on enterprising minds to find uses for the
wood.
"It's a tough market right now, but I'm somewhat optimistic it will turn the
corner," said Cary Green, timber-management specialist with the beetle-blighted
White River National Forest. "Right now we've got a limited number of places to
take it, but there are a lot of good ideas out there for how to use it."
One solution is to think smaller, said Brett KenCairn, the founder of Community
Energy Solutions. He is working to develop a small-scale biomass plant in Walden
that would burn shredded beetle kill to create local electricity and heat.
Don't try to compete with the multimillion- dollar sawmills up in Canada,
KenCairn said. Think locally. Like using wood chips to create heat that can dry
wood for other uses. Or heat greenhouses. Or deliver some electricity to
small-scale agricultural operations.
One of the biggest pushes in the emerging logging-is-good movement is convincing
homeowners and builders that blue-tinted beetle kill is quality wood.
Randy Piper, whose Wood & Stone Building Depot in Granby is fighting to elevate
beetle kill among homebuilders and buyers, is using the tag "Be Green, Build
Blue."
And Vail Resorts, which is building the largest Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design-certified resort project in the country, wants to use as
much beetle kill as possible in the construction of backsplashes, ceilings,
mantels, furniture, wainscot, soffits and handrails.
But the $1 billion Ever Vail residential and commercial project actually will
lose LEED points for using timber that is not preapproved. LEED has not deemed
the wood coming off Vail Mountain as sustainable.
"What could be more sustainable than using a dead tree from your own backyard?"
said Tom Miller with the Vail Resorts Development Co., which will earn its
green-built certification through other avenues, such as energy conservation and
efficiency.
Vail Resort's push for beetle kill helps send the message that the timber is
both environmentally sustainable and suitable for luxury building.
But high-end trimwork and small interior uses for beetle kill will not do much
to reduce the flood of beetle-blighted wood that will soon pour from the
mountains, said Dan Len, the Forest Service's small-diameter timber specialist.
"I've seen a lot of inquiries into what to do with this wood in Colorado, but I
have not seen a lot of practical solutions," Len said. "The smaller wood, like
the lodgepole, is more costly to handle and mill. We need to create a greater
need for that wood. And that's tough."
Jolovich and Piper in Granby think they have a way to stir demand for
beetle-kill trees: Use the trees to create affordable log homes in resort
communities struggling to secure attainable housing. Next month, Jolovich will
fire up a special mill that strips and notches small-diameter lodgepole like
Lincoln Logs for use in a log-cabin kit.
Jolovich, a pilot with sandpaper-rough hands and a straight-to-business swagger,
estimates he can sell the kits for $25,000, or about half the cost of a
Canadian-made kit.
Don't stop there, Piper said. Install a Habitat for Humanity model in Grand
County. Volunteers help the Forest Service log and reforest in exchange for the
timber, and teams of community members volunteer to erect the easy-to-build
homes.
"We save the forests and we create home ownership," Piper said. "We reduce our
burden on society and help the planet. It just takes a little vision."
And a little logger bug.
"The beetle is the catalyst," Jolovich said. "It's sparking a change in how
people think. It's sparking a change in the market. And it could be the spark
that gets this nation's forest industry and its forests back on its feet."
Jason Blevins: 303-954-1374
For More Information Contact:
GreenWay, llc
Main St., Granby, Co
Tel: 970-887-3739
FAX: 970-281-4071
Internet:
recycledtimber@begreenbuildblue.com