‘Win-win situation’: Chipping slash rids land of fire hazards and provides fuel for school biomass boilers

Getting rid of slash created by thinning private forests generally happens in two ways: the landowner can either chip it or pile it and burn it.

Of these two options, chipping can be cleaner, easier and safer, said Byron Bonney, community forester with the Bitter Root Resource Conservation and Development Area.

By GREG LEMON Staff Reporter

http://www.ravallinews.com/articles/2004/08/26/news/news01.txt

There are only certain times of the year when burning slash is permitted, mostly in the fall and spring.

"Under these drought conditions like we’ve had, It’s pretty hazardous to deal with this fuel that way," he told a group of private landowners Wednesday at the RC&D office in Hamilton.

The landowners were gathered to listen to Bonney and forester Stan Krueger discuss the chipping option of slash removal. After a short meeting at the RC&D office, the entire group drove out to a site where Krueger was chipping slash created by a small hazardous fuels reduction project.

"We just want to demo one of the options of getting rid of the slash," said Krueger.

Krueger also has the contract to provide both Darby and Victor schools with fuel for their new biomass boilers. Darby’s boiler went into use last November and Victor’s boiler will be ready by the middle of this September.

The new boilers burn wood chips and Krueger figures that he will need to get about 1,400 tons of wood chips between the two boilers for this upcoming school year. He now has about 300 tons.

The boilers were built with federal grant money through the Forest Service’s Fuels for Schools program, said Tom Coston, director of the program for the agency’s Northern Region. Coston also works with the RC&D and was at the demonstration Wednesday.

The slash Krueger used in the chipping demonstration was on Brent Holmes’ property near the mouth of Canyon Creek canyon. Holmes is in the middle of hazardous fuels reduction work on his 16 acres. The work is partially being funded by a grant he has through the RC&D.

Small landowners, like Holmes, are supplying the fuel the biomass boilers are going to need, said Coston.

"From my standpoint, the landowner who wants to do hazardous fuels reduction on their land – we’re looking to them to be the source of a lot of our fuel," he said.

Nearly 15 landowners attended the demonstration, despite a persistent drizzle. And Coston was pleased to see the turnout. Getting the word out about the chipping option of slash removal is important, he said.

"It does what you set out to do and that’s get rid of the hazardous fuels," said Coston.

Chipping is also quicker than burning, said Rick Yerger, who owns land adjacent to Holmes and has already done fuel reduction work.

Even under the best conditions it takes a lot of time to pile the slash to burn it, he said. Chipping cuts out much of the process.

"It saves you the time of handpiling it and burning it," said Yerger.

Still hazardous fuels reduction is a big time commitment, he said.

"It took me over a year to do my six acres on my own," said Yerger.

Chipping is better than burning, in his estimation, especially now that the chips go to the schools.

"As far as I’m concerned that’s a win-win situation for everybody," he said.

Working the land

The pile of slash the chipper was working through took Holmes, with the help of his two children, about 80 hours to pile. Krueger figured he could chip it all in about an hour and it would give him half a truckload.

Under the grant that Holmes has through the RC&D, the hazardous fuels on his land will cost $8,000 to remove. Half of that will be provided by Holmes either in money or in-kind donations. For Holmes, the majority of his contribution will be through doing the work himself.

For his daughter Breanna, 13, and his son Brock, 10, it is all a lot of work.

The pile the chipper was working on Wednesday only represents part of two acres of fuel reduction.

"Two acres felt like eight," said Breanna.

She and Brock point down to another large slash pile in the distance. They piled all of it on their own.

"That’s our slash pile," she said proudly.

Holmes and his wife moved to the property in 1988. At the time, much of it was covered with thick, young ponderosa pine, he said.

He immediately started working to thin things out.

"Aesthetically, it makes it look better and it reduces the fire danger," said Holmes.

The land that he just cleared has a park like appearance. The remaining trees vary greatly in size from trunks over 30 inches in diameter, to saplings only a few feet tall.

But the variation is the point, said Holmes. Eventually the young trees will fill in the space he’s left for them to grow.

"They’re going to be big select trees that have branches all the way around them."

And as the big trees get old and die, the younger trees will just be hitting maturity.

On the other side of his property, Holmes hasn’t done fuels reduction work, but that doesn’t mean he’s been idle.

A fence made of small-diameter wood borders the stand of ponderosa pine mixed with some aspen and a few Douglas fir. The logs in the fence were from some thinning work Holmes did after they first moved to the land.

The trees that are left are still too close together, but have grown faster than they would have if he hadn’t done the thinning, said Holmes.

Yellow flagging marks many of the trees for removal, but rather than making a fence out of these trees, they will be sold as saw logs.

Holmes equates it to an investment.

"This is like money in the bank," he said.

But it is also an investment into his family and the land and the future of both.

"You got to look beyond my lifetime," he said. "What are you leaving behind?"

By thinning the forest, you make it healthier and the trees grow faster. The money he makes from selling some of the logs will help off-set the cost of his portion of the grant.

And healthy forests are part of the reason RC&D is providing the grant money.

"These grant programs that we have are designed to leave the best and take the rest," said Bonney.

Incentives

Krueger isn’t making money on the chipping process.

The chipper he demonstrated on Wednesday costs $250 an hour to run. A truckload of chips will bring about $130 at the Smurfit Stone mill in Frenchtown. That same load could bring $265 if he sells to the school in Darby or Victor. But it can take him up to four hours to fill a truck.

Krueger isn’t charging Holmes to chip his slash, but he expects he won’t be able to keep chipping slash for people for free.

"We’re going to have to be charging the landowner a little bit," he said.

Some of the grant money the landowners get through the RC&D can be used for the chipping process, but right now it is tough to make money on it, said Bonney.

"The incentive isn’t there right now," he said.

The further you get away from the mill in Frenchtown, the more expensive it gets just due to transportation costs, he said.

The hope for the near future is the biomass boilers at the schools. Besides the two in the valley, there is one scheduled to be built in Phillipsburg and possibly Townsend.

"They’ve given us something close by that we’ll have a place to take these chips to utilize," said Bonney.

Reporter Greg Lemon can be

reached at 363-3300 or at

[email protected]