Daily Archives: February 28, 2018

Today’s Takeaway

Our hashtag of the day is #tomorrowstimbertalent

February 28, 2018
Category: Today's Takeaway

Commentary on Canada’s 2018 budget includes a feature on addressing the need for more women in construction trades, and FPAC provides a breakdown on how the budget will benefit the forest sector.

Cleaning-up: BC’s West Fraser Timber is designing an engineered cover that will keep coal pile contaminants from entering into adjacent land areas and Northern Pulp has been given a cleanup directive from the Nova Scotia government to manage power boiler ash. 

The BC Wood WORKS! awards are still rocking the news scene (in Penticton and Whistler), and in the UK, TRADA is encouraging more young people to think about wood with their Urban Buzz program where 60 students from 28 universities competed in a timber design competition. 

The University of Arizona notes a disturbing trend in wildfires that shows an increase in area burned that will continue into coming decades in the Pacific Northwest. They hope their research serves as a ‘wake-up call to public agencies and landowners’. Protecting forests from fire, a collaborative approach is working in Ashland, Oregon, and California is asking for increased funding to bring in extra firefighters and implement a more nimble response time when help is needed.

—Sandy McKellar, Tree Frog Editor

Read More

Business & Politics

Budget 2018 helps support forest sector priorities on: addressing climate change; skills training and expanding trade

By Richard Walker
Forest Products Association of Canada
February 27, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada

Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC) sees some encouraging opportunities for Canada’s forest products sector in today’s federal budget including measures to support our transition to a low carbon economy, skills training, and expanding trade. In the budget tabled today by Finance Minister Bill Morneau entitled “Equality & Growth a Strong Middle Class”, he earmarked: Over $2 billion to support skills training to help build a workforce for the future; Commitment to protect and expand markets; Over $3 billion for environmental initiatives to help address climate change, support conservation and move to a low-carbon economy. “Budget 2018 sends some positive signals that support the forest sector’s priorities, with investments to build capacity to address climate change, skills training to build a workforce for the future, and supports the further diversification of our export markets,” said FPAC CEO Derek Nighbor.

Read More

New tools to attract women to construction in budget 2018

By Vince Versace
Journal of Commerce
February 28, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada

An anecdote about “Joan the plumber” of Algonquin College and the unveiling of new funding tools to boost the entry of women into the trades and construction are examples of how federal budget 2018 could impact the construction industry. The budget announced the creation of an Apprenticeship Incentive Grant for Women, a Women in Construction Fund and a new pre-apprenticeship program, which are all initiatives that are in line with government’s overall focus on gender equality and growth for the Canadian middle class. During Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s budget speech, he said the nation’s future success rests on making sure all Canadians have an opportunity to work and that they have the courage “to try new things and forge new paths” like Joan, a student at Algonquin College. Joan returned to school after raising her family, he explained.

Read More

West Fraser Timber to supply engineered cover for Union Bay coal hills

By Scott Strasser
Victoria News
February 27, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

The provincial government has revealed new information on the long-awaited plans for the Union Bay coal hills. …Adjacent to the section previously owned by Kensington Island Properties (KIP), the rest of the coal hills is leased by the Crown to forestry company West Fraser Timber. The company’s lease expires later this year. …An email to the Record from the ministry said that West Fraser Timber is “developing a detailed design plan for an engineered cover” at its own cost that will be submitted to the Ministry of Environment for review. The engineered cover will envelop the entire contaminated area. According to the ministry, the engineered cover will impede water access to the coal pile, reducing acid rock drainage and the release of metals to the environment.

Read More

Directive issued to Northern Pulp after ash leak earlier this month

The Canadian Press in CTV News
February 27, 2018
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada East

HALIFAX — An ash leak at the Northern Pulp mill earlier this month prompted a cleanup directive from Nova Scotia’s Environment Department on Tuesday. The directive says the mill, located at Abercrombie Point near Pictou, must submit a plan to prevent further discharges of power boiler ash slurry into a ditch northwest of the facility’s power boiler ash pond by June 29. Environment Minister Iain Rankin said Tuesday the spill was “small” and “low risk to the environment.” “The actual material itself, the fly ash, is not toxic,” he said. “So … we were basically comfortable with the directive and happy that they self-reported it to the department.”

Read More

Wood, Paper & Green Building

Okanagan buildings recognized for excellence in wood design

By Kristi Patton
Penticton Western News
February 27, 2018
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: Canada, Canada West

Two Okanagan projects and an industry leader in wood construction have been recognized by the 2018 Wood Design Awards. Wood WORKS! is a national industry-led program of the Canadian Wood Council, with a goal to support innovation and provide leadership on the use of wood products and building systems. The Penticton Lakeside Resort, west wing construction by CEI Architecture Associates Inc. won the Commercial Wood Design award and the trades renewal and expansion project at the Kelowna campus of Okanagan College took the Institutional Wood Design award. …Bill Downing, president of Structurlam Mass Timber Corporation of Penticton, was presented the Jury’s Choice Award. He has been a wood industry leader and advocate for wood for more than 30 years.

Read More

Whistler’s Solana Condos Win the Sustainable Forestry Initiative Certified Wood Award

By Sustainable Forestry Initiative Inc.
GlobeNewswire
February 27, 2018
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: Canada, Canada West

VANCOUVER — A commitment to use responsibly sourced wood products has earned Whistler-based Innovation Building Group an award from the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI). The SFI Certified Wood Award is part of the Wood Design & Building Awards program. Innovation Building Group received the award, for its multi-residential project Solana in Whistler, BC, at the Wood WORKS!BC 2018 Wood Design Awards Gala in Vancouver on February 26. …“Solana exemplifies our commitment to constantly improve the quality of the homes we build. We used leading edge, made-in-BC products in the sustainable design and construction, like LVL [laminated veneer lumber] panels certified to SFI,” said Rod Nadeau, Managing Partner and founder of the Innovation Building Group. “Health and comfort, through advanced air and lighting systems and natural materials, like wood, were the primary goals in the Solana design.”

Read More

Top timber talent from UK universities win Urban Buzz 2018

Timber Research And Development Association (TRADA)
February 28, 2018
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: International

A talented multidisciplinary team of #tomorrowstimbertalent from some of Britain’s best-known universities have won TRADA’s prestigious undergraduate Urban Buzz competition. …Speaking on behalf of the winning team, Edward Shaw said: “We are so excited to win Urban Buzz 2018. Representing our respective universities, presenting our designs to a panel of eminent judges, learning to work under pressure in a multidisciplinary team and innovating with timber has all been a fantastic experience.” …60 students from 28 universities took part in an intense ‘charrette-style’ challenge at the University of Sheffield last weekend, to conceive ways that timber can be used in the creation of a timber multi-storey car park.

Read More

Consultation starts on fumigant to replace methyl bromide

New Zealand Forest Owners Association
Scoop Independent News
February 28, 2018
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: International

Tom Hammand

Consultation starts on fumigant for forest industry to replace methyl bromide. A significant milestone has been reached in replacing methyl bromide as the standard fumigant for export logs and timber. The Environmental Protection Authority has just released application details for approval of ethanedinitrile (EDN) as a fumigant for log and timber exports. The forest industry anticipates EDN could replace methyl bromide fumigation which is used on log exports to China and India. …The Chair of Stakeholders in Methyl Bromide Reduction Don Hammond, says approval by the EPA is the critical first step into its use in New Zealand to ensure log exports are free of pests the importing countries don’t want.

Read More

Forestry

B.C. government increases protection for threatened species

By Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development
Government of British Columbia
February 27, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

The B.C. government is protecting more wildlife habitat areas for the northern goshawk and marbled murrelet to help populations of these birds recover, Doug Donaldson, Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, and George Heyman, Minister of Environment and Climate Change Strategy, announced today. “These unique species of birds require mature and old-growth forest areas for breeding, and with their numbers declining, we need to do more to help them recover. These implementation plans will include habitat protection, species inventory and monitoring,” said Donaldson.  Northern goshawks are large hawks that usually build their nests in large trees in mature or old-growth forests along B.C.’s coast. A pair of goshawks will use the same breeding area year after year, but may make new nests as part of their courtship rituals. Marbled murrelets are the only coastal seabirds that nest in forested areas, usually on mossy platforms high in old-growth trees.

Read More

Audit of Forest Planning and Practices: Downie Street Sawmills Ltd. FL A31102

BC Forest Practices Board
February 27, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

In October 2017 the Board audited forestry operations on Forest Licence A31102 held by Downie Street Sawmills Ltd. (Downie) within the Selkirk Natural Resource District. This audit included harvesting, roads, silviculture, wildfire protection and associated planning that took place over a two-year period starting in October 2015. Downie’s activities generally complied in all significant respects with the requirements of the Forest and Range Practices Act, the Wildfire Act and related regulations. However, the audit noted a significant non-compliance related to some road construction practices on steep terrain.

Read More

Spruce budworm funding welcomed as push to keep species out of Nova Scotia continues

By Andrea Gunn
The Chronicle Herald
February 27, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada East

Those in Nova Scotia’s forestry sector will likely rest a little easier knowing scientists will be able to continue working on a solution to stop the spread of the destructive spruce budworm. The federal 2018 budget, tabled Tuesday, proposes investing up to $74.75 million over five years starting in 2018–19 to prevent the spread of spruce budworm. The funding is to be made available on a 60-40 federal to provincial and industry cost-sharing basis, allowing academia, industry and others to continue to work together to protect the region’s forests. … “There’s a lot riding on this,” said Jeff Bishop, executive director of Forest Nova Scotia. “We’re very pleased that our federal government partners have come to the table with this funding. This is certainly going to give us the best opportunity to take on the pest.”

Read More

Aspen Planers expecting larger timber supply with recent MOU with Lower Nicola

By Chad Klassen
CFJC Today
February 27, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada East

KAMLOOPS — Aspen Planers says the memorandum of understanding signed last week between the Merritt mill and Lower Nicola Indian Band will boost its timber supply and keep it going well into the future. “It helps us because the Lower Nicola Indian Band has a long-term timber license in the amount of 50,000 cub metres per year,” says Aspen Planers executive vice-president Bruce Rose. “That’s one aspect that helps us because those logs will be directed to the Merritt mill.” The mill is now the cornerstone of the Merritt economy, the only one remaining in town, 14 months after Tolko shut down. A family-run operation that provides 150 direct jobs to Merritt. 

Read More

Appeals court sides with Forest Service on Hebgen Lake logging

By Michael Wright
The Bozeman Daily Chronicle
February 27, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

A federal appeals court has sided with the U.S. Forest Service in a lawsuit over a logging project on the southwestern shore of Hebgen Lake, bringing an end to a five-year legal battle. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court’s 2016 decision to lift an injunction on the Lonesome Wood 2 project, which the Forest Service first proposed in 2012. Alliance for the Wild Rockies and Native Ecosystems Council first sued over the project in 2013, arguing that it would harm habitat for grizzly bears and Canada lynx. The project consists of thinning on roughly 2,500 acres of land near summer homes on the southwestern shore of the lake. … Jason Brey, the Forest Service’s Hebgen Lake district ranger, hailed the decision, saying that it’s nice to “get the legal wrangling behind us.”

Read More

Could forest collaborative work?

By Jane Stebbins
Curry Coastal Pilot
February 27, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

Brookings might be able to learn a thing or two about forestry management from its neighbors over the pass in Ashland, who have for eight years been managing the forest by thinning and burning. Ashland is trying to protect its only water source from contamination that occurs after a wildfire. Brookings, while it has an eye on the Chetco River’s headwaters for contamination after the Chetco Bar Fire, also got a reality check when that wildfire crept to within 5 miles of city limits last fall. Ashland’s success was the result of collaboration, citizen input, some good timing and a little luck. Realizing it needed to protect its only water source, the city of 21,600 people launched a Forest Resiliency Stewardship Project in 2009 in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service, The Nature Conservancy and a local habitat project group.

Read More

California fire chiefs seek money to prepare for wildfires

By Jonathan Cooper
Associated Press in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch
February 27, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

Ken Pimlott

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — California fire chiefs said Wednesday that reinforcements were too slow to arrive in last year’s ferocious firestorms and asked lawmakers for $100 million to call in extra firefighters when weather conditions are ripe for a conflagration. The fire chiefs said drought and climate change will cause longer, more severe fire seasons, and the state’s “mutual aid” system for sharing resources across departments can’t keep up. “We need to be more nimble in the first few hours of these incidents,” Gossner said. “Prepositioned engines, that would have helped. It wouldn’t have solved everything but it would’ve helped. Those fires killed 44 people in several counties north of San Francisco and destroyed 8,900 buildings.

Read More

Wildfire problem will grow in coming decades

University of Arizona
Phys.org
February 27, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

The massive wildfires that burned in California, Oregon, Montana, Idaho, British Columbia and other parts of North America in 2017 in many cases exhibited a disturbing trend: a marked increase in the amount of area burned. …That trend will continue in coming decades across the Western U.S. and northwestern Canada, though not uniformly, according to a recent study. …”Wildfires act as a multiplier of other forces such as climate change, exposing more and more areas not only to the immediate effects of fire, but also to the resulting cascade of ecological, hydrological, economic and social consequences,” Falk said. “We hope that this research will be a wake-up call to public agencies and legislatures at all levels.

Read More

The forest wars: loggers v greenies in Victoria, NSW

By Graham Lloyd
The Australian
March 1, 2018
Category: Forestry
Region: International

Deep in East Gippsland’s Kuark forest, ancient trees tower overhead, the scent of sassafras wafts on the breeze and birdsong fills the air. Old-growth trees such as these provide a rare example of a landscape undisturbed by human harvest. But Kuark is under threat of logging. Had it not taken action, Environmental Justice Australia says, by now the birdsong in Kuark would have been replaced by the sound of chainsaws, and the fragrance of sassafras supplanted by the odour of diesel. The Kuark action taken in the Victorian Supreme Court is one of two legal challenges that point to the shape of things to come as the Keating era Regional Forest Agreements expire and discussions about how to manage forests nationally come to a head. Logging companies want increased access to timber and funding for new plantations.

Read More