A Cut Above – Harvesting, Milling and Profiting from Beetle Kill
By Travis Crooke
Many of our forests in Routt County are perishing thanks to the mountain pine beetle. These insects have attacked the lodgepole pines, and the trees will eventually fall. While this is a discouraging prospect, once we accept the loss, we can develop ways to manage the situation and maybe even profit from it.
Removing the Beetle Kill Threat
First the trees need to be logged. If allowed to stand, the trees pose a fire danger and can potentially fall on people in the area. Mike Miller, owner of Rogue Resources says, “We can manage our forests or Mother Nature can. If we manage them, we can at least get some benefits from this suddenly abundant natural resource.” Most of the contracts for local logging companies are with private land owners who want specific swaths of land managed. The State and National Forest Service are also employing loggers. Rusty Baker, owner of Baker Enterprises, notes that with most government contracts, it's a matter of clearing the dead trees from campgrounds, waterways, and fence lines to create fire blocks.
Using state-of-the-art machines, local loggers enter an area and only remove the sections of the forest that have been killed. The machines used to cut most of the trees look similar to a Track-hoe, but instead of a bucket for digging, they have claws that grip the tree and saws to cut it. “We're only clear-cutting the dead trees,” says Baker. They leave the slash, or branches and tree tops, as a source of nutrients to renew the forests quickly. The machines also churn some of the compacted soil under the slash, which also helps renew plant life.
A number of logging techniques are available for beetle kill trees, and depending on the environmental and economic requirements, different solutions are appropriate. Miller notes that his company uses four different techniques of logging depending on the land owner's needs. Some techniques are extremely low impact, such as using horses to drag the logs from the cleared area. Rogue also uses a high-lead technique. Using a cable strung above the trees, they drag the trees from steep-pitched zones such as ravines and mountain sides. Two other methods are long and short logging. Long logging involves cutting the trees, pulling them from the forest, removing the branches, and transporting the wood as full-length logs. Short logging processes the trees in the forest to shorter lengths before transporting. Baker and Rogue employ both long and short logging systems, allowing them to clear about five-hundred trees a day.
Using the Natural Resource Profitably
Loggers are working on removing the dead trees, but what happens to all the extra wood? They can't just leave the wood in the forest because the fire danger remains, but they lose their profit margin in vehicle costs if they transport it. Beetle kill is a relatively new problem the region is facing, but “new applications for the wood are being developed on a weekly basis” says Miller. Some great ideas will be helping the community this summer and others in the near future.
Mike Miller took the surplus problem into his own hands and started a saw mill, More Lumber, Inc., in Milner. Now Rogue hauls logs and More Lumber processes them ten miles away from where they are cut. “The kicker is that transportation costs are cut to between a third and a half,” says Rogue's controller Trent Jones. Because of the mill, logging is now economically feasible, and more jobs are created for Routt County residents as well. From here, most of the lumber that More Lumber processes is sold to a plant that makes the wood to a structural grade through chemical and heat treatments. More Lumber is still finalizing the timber mill operation and has plans to install kilns to heat-treat the wood and furnaces that will make the mill self-sustainable and more eco-friendly. The furnaces will recycle the heat and turn it into the electricity that runs the mill.
After the wood has been milled once, it is either sold to factories across North America for re-processing, or it is sold locally for myriad uses. The Home Resource center at the Milner landfill is a non-profit company that sells this lumber. Currently, the Home Resource Center is taking orders for non-structural beetle kill wood. More Lumber and a few other local companies are supplying the wood, but General Manager Dave Epstein says that by mid-summer he will be stocking a number of wood products at the Home Resource showroom such as fence posts, siding, and trim.
Putting the Waste to Use
Epstein has also found a use for all the sawdust generated from milling the beetle kill though his other company, Twin Enviro, (owner and operator of the Milner landfill) which combines sawdust with biosolids from the water treatment plant, green waste such as tree limbs and lawn clippings, and used cardboard, to create compost, which will be ready by mid-summer. If the sawdust was left at the mills, it would eventually begin to seep into the Yampa River. However, because the composting area is completely lined, it keeps our soil and water balanced. Twin Enviro compost will be cheaper than outside competitors because the transportation costs will be lower. Epstein says, “Customers who contribute products for composting receive a discount on the other end.” For example, the town of Steamboat, which contributes biosolids from the water treatment plant, will receive compost at a discounted price for use by Parks and Recreation.
From Tree to House
Rick Pighini of Minglewood Timbers, a local builder and entrepreneur, also sees potential in the beetle kill. Along with his partner John Davenport, the two run a portable mill. They have been involved with logging and selling lumber in the valley for years, but recently they turned to building with the beetle kill. Pighini says that it's perfectly fine to build with these trees. One would think that a custom home is ultra-expensive, but Minglewood claims if you buy beetle kill lumber, and build everything in your home from it, you can actually save a fair bit of money. This is a great option for low cost housing such as cabins. It uses an abundant local resource, and saves on the house's carbon foot print. Minglewood enjoys working on distinctive projects. For example, one client had a lot completely full of dead trees. He hired Minglewood and they “took a nightmare and turned it into his dream house,” says Davenport.
Why the mountain pine beetle was able to devastate our forests remains open to speculation. Regardless, the trees are dead and now pose a serious threat to the land and the residents. Thankfully there are local companies filling the niche and bringing a benefit to our community while doing it. 
Features
The Beetle Kill Issue
10 Years Strong
Building Green With Beetle Kill Wood
A Cut Above - Harvesting and Milling
Securing Safer Forests by Salvaging Snags
Stimulus Funding Hits the Ground
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The Green Scene
Builder Perspectives
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