Tuesday, May 25, 2010

One extremely jam-packed day! May 13

We're off on another busy day starting at the Northern Development Initiative Trust with Brodie Guy (Economic Development Manager). This trust was legislatively formed with a capital base of $185 million. After five years they have spent $56 million on economic development projects but due to returns on investments (31%), they still have a balance of almost $184 million! Very impressive. The goal of the Trust is to diversify and stimulate economic growth. They work towards this goal through grants and loans of various types to municipalities. The Trust functions outside of government and is able to quickly turn around applications for projects with a very small staff. Municipalities that receive funding are required to report for five years on job creation, revenues and economic impacts. Some of the project areas are industry attraction (bioenergy for example) and the Pine Beetle Diversification Fund. The Pine Beetle Fund is to help communities hardest hit by mountain pine beetle diversity into other areas. The Trust has funded 61 projects in Pine Beetle Diversification totalling $19 million. It was quite interesting to learn about economic development especially in forest-based communities. This was a topic I had never really delved into (http://www.northerndevelopment.bc.ca/).





It had been arranged that Brodie would serve as our guide for the day getting us to our appointments. Our next stop was the University of Northern British Columbia. Kathy took us to the beautiful library which you see in the picture below. They make great use of wood!

After the library we went to the Administration building. The facilities are very modern and include lots of light and wood (look at the picture below). We were able to sit down with Kathy and learn about her program. The university is small with 4,000 students. What surprised me is that the budget for the university is stable. UNBC has the only combined wildlife and fisheries degree in Canada. Accreditation standards have changed recently for forestry to reflect the broader nature of forestry and UNBC was the first to be accredited under the new standards.



Kathy had been able to arrange a brief visit for us with the Chief Forester for BC, Jim Snetsinger. His position is appointed and also includes responsibility as one of the Assistant Deputy Ministers. We learned that 90% of BC is covered by land use management plans that involve representatives for all stakeholders. These land use plans identify all special management zones. The Chief Forester is responsible for setting the allowable cut for the Province based on timber supply areas. The cut may be volume or area based. When setting the allowable cut, the Chief Forester looks primarily at biophysical factors (inventory, growth rate, silviculture and riparian impacts) with some consideration for socio-economic impact.


Third party certification covers 60 million hectares in BC (Forest Stewardship Council, Sustainable Forestry Initiative and Canadian Standards Association). The Chief told us that there are forestry classes in high school but they are typically aimed at the less academically talented students. I was happy to hear about the classes but hated to hear that the Canadians aren't pushing their bright students into the forestry profession (something we also struggle with in the South). The bright students just seem to find us. It does sound as though the BC public is reasonably informed about forestry. So many people in the United States are disconnected from agriculture and forestry. Other than in the big cities (like Vancouver), forestry is more visible in BC. Our visit with the Chief Forester was brief but informative. It was great that he could find the time to meet with us. Again, I believe Kathy Lewis set this up and for that we owe her a big thanks.


After the Chief left we were shown to what I guess is some kind of boiler room. The university is heated entirely by pellets. Later this year they expect to have the rough biomass facility online. It will be a gasification plant using the same equipment as the University of South Carolina. There are still questions about supply but they are attempting to work with a sawmill. There is also continuing dialogue about removing coarse woody debris from sites as far as biodiversity is concerned and the removal of nutrients.


We continued into one of Kathy's labs. Most of her research is on dendrochronology. Kathy explained her work in dendroarcheology which involves dating wood that is used in structures like old barns. It definitely sounds like very interesting work.


After a great visit on campus we had to rush to a Rotary lunch. The team separated and sat with Rotarians representing three of the local clubs. I had a wonderful lunch with the Rotarians at my table. They had lots of questions about my axe throwing hobby. It was a great group and I enjoyed the company. Our team was the program for the meeting. The presentation involves each of us telling a little about ourselves, our career and a short discussion about some aspect of forestry in South Carolina. We were all pleasantly surprised to receive applause after each of us. Once we were finished the club took care of the rest of their business. Our presentation was well received.


Off we went to our next appointment at Canfor's Prince George sawmill where the general manager, Charlie greeted us. The mill's major customers are Lowe's and Home Depot. They are usually running 80% of the production as mountain pine beetle wood. They primarily run MPB wood because it is drier reducing drying costs but resulting in more waste.

Today they are experimenting with green wood (about 12 hours additional drying time). As the mountain pine beetle wood is used up the mill will need to transition to green wood. You can see all of the logs in the yard waiting for processing.

This mill produces 369 different products. The process begins with a computer optimizer to capture maximum value from each log. Logs are also scanned to determine moisture levels to optimize drying time.

Near the end of the process the wood is hand graded at the rate of 31 pieces per minute! We watched the hand grading and it was fast! The picture below shows these two hand graders who were waiting for the line to start back up after a break. They really wanted us to take their picture!

The picture below shows the symbols that are marked on each piece of wood as it quickly goes by the graders.

The mill produces 1.5 million board feet of lumber a day! Certainly impressive to see all that wood moving through the mill. The picture below shows some of the blue-stained final product.

Time to move on to our last appointment of the day. We met Doug Routledge (Vice President) and Chris Lear (Manager, Forest Education) of the Council of Forest Industries (COFI). The organization operates at the Provincial level but it's membership is primarily Interior industry. COFI consists of four units: Public Policy, Lumber Grade Stamp, Forest Education, and Markets and Trade. Public policy focuses on advocacy for the industry at the federal and provincial level. The Lumber Grade unit conducts training of graders as well as monitoring of the graders through sampling. The Markets and Trade unit works on building codes and marketing wood products. Chris works on education at all levels (teachers, children, general public). Some fo the education is career awareness. He does mainly hands-on activities and helps to make sure that teachers have materials available to teach forestry related topics in a way that can be integrated into curriculum goals.
There are 27 member companies in COFI representing 100 facilities in BC. The industry is focusing energy on trying to diversify into China. They are also battling land use planning. The industry wants to keep the land base secure and in forestry. Doug did his best to try to help us Southerners figure out the tenure system. For me, every time I start to understand some part of it, I hear something new and have to figure how everything fits in. This was another great visit. I really enjoyed hearing about Chris' approach to getting in the schools and teaching kids about forestry. His passion for what he does is very evident.
Our long day of appointments had come to an end. We took in a ton of information. It will take a while for us to process and put pieces together. What is increasingly obvious is there are some wonderful people working in forestry in British Columbia.
We all went our separate ways for teh evening activities. I headed out to run a few errands in Prince George since we were headed out in the morning. The picture below is PG man. I wanted a shot of him and when I pulled up found these young guys trying to use the automatic function on a camera and time a jump in the air in front of PG. I took their picture and found out they were from Australia. Reminded me of my new friends from Australia that I met at Rotary conference in Greenville.
The people at the Northern Development Initiative Trust had told me about an artist's reception at a local gallery. I really wanted to find something made out of blue stained mountain pine beetle wood so I headed to the Gallery. I didn't stay for the conversation with the artist but had a look through the gift shop. There was a beautiful selection of wooden bowls from blue stained wood. What a great find! I bought myself a vase with three wooden tulips, one of which was made from beetle killed wood. I headed back to the hotel happy with my find. I grabbed a quick bite to eat in my room and enjoyed some mindless television. A nice quiet end to a very busy day!

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