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California Hardwood ProducersLocation: Auburn, CA Truly using “the new 3 “R’s: repair, re-use, recycle” as per guidelines in the SmartWood™ Rediscovered Wood Program of The Rainforest Alliance, California Hardwood Producers (CHP) near Auburn, CA, practices salvage harvest from our Urban Forests. CHP “harvests” wood and hardware from deconstructed buildings, salvages logs from landfills, and purchases culled wood from urban and suburban landscapes. With onsite milling and processing capability, it is one of the last remaining sources in the area for both standard and custom dimension products. “We are the only mill in the area set up to cut for grade by rolling the log to identify the best cuts. But we don’t cut immediately. Time in the hardwood industry is money; you have to wait, like fine wine. You have to let hardwoods age properly; if you try to speed up the process, you end up with firewood. So just like a wine appellation, it’s important where the wood is aged, so it doesn’t dry too fast or too slowly. This unique foothill climate allows wood to air dry without checking. “California has some of the finest hardwood forests in the world. The trouble is there is a steep learning curve for its use; you have to waste a lot of wood in order to learn to dry and cut hardwoods properly. So we have hardwood seminars at the mill, co-sponsored by the Resource Conservation District (RCD), Sierra Economic Development Corporation (SEDC), and USFS, to get people to grow & plant hardwood trees for harvest, and teach them how to process them. We’ve also worked with UC Berkeley Forestry on tree vitality at the USFS research forest." Rebuilding with the assistance of their local RCD & SEDC after a fire in 1997, owner Dave Parmenter faces yet another challenge. The settlement of a recent lawsuit brought by a developer who wants to build houses on a neighboring property will cause the mill operations to cease on Dec 31, 2007. California Hardwood Producers retail store will remain open. “This mill has been here for over 100 years, and the developer thinks the noise of the saws will bother homeowners. This town grew up around this mill, and it grew, in large part, because of this mill, and the jobs it brought here. When the grew right up to our property line, we added retail sales –and now the County gets sales tax revenue. But I guess it’s not enough. I have been a builder and developer, so I know the math.” “We (have been) a hub for urban waste wood and received around a million tons of wood waste a year. If we aren’t here, wood that is harvested or salvaged here would probably have to be trucked to Jackel Enterprises in Watsonville (CA) over 200 miles away, and still, there are some operations we do here that they don’t have the equipment to do. That’s a lot of fuel, and it may make it too expensive to re-use this wood – so what’s the alternative? Cut down more forests, here, or in Brazil – because the need for wood still grows. How would you know where THAT board comes from, and how many resources were used to get it here? At least when we cut domestically, we can go right up the road into the forest to make sure its being done correctly. When I do buy exotic woods, I pay attention, and I know my sources of sustainable teak personally, but there still is not a single worldwide chain of custody structure for raw materials.” According to the US Forest service, if city trees that are (already) culled each year were sawn into boards, they would supply almost 30% of annual hardwood lumber usage in the United States.
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