Shame

[barmstrong2]

A crew has been cutting roadside on the interstate over the last few days. There's trees piled up for 6 miles on the southbound side and they started cutting northbound today.
Then, I saw it. Another crew working the southbound with a huge chipper and a grapple, running all those trees through the chipper.
I'll bet there's 500 cord of wood out there.

 

[Applesister]

We had the same thing here along an interstate. Never saw so much heavy equipment in any one location before in my entire life. It was impressive how much land clearing they did. Started in the fall with a really tight deadline. They added an extra lane for traffic in a 12 mile stretch.
Same thing with the trees, chipped.

 

[Applesister]

Impressive money wise, sad environment wise.

 

[Riff]

People talk about energy independence, there ya go, 500 cords that would heat maybe 100+ homes comfortably for a winter...gone.

 

[barmstrong2]

We had the same thing here along an interstate. Never saw so much heavy equipment in any one location before in my entire life. It was impressive how much land clearing they did. Started in the fall with a really tight deadline. They added an extra lane for traffic in a 12 mile stretch.
Same thing with the trees, chipped.

Yeah, that machine moves right along. Vertical grapple grabs the tree and a saw blade cuts it off. The operator stacks them up 10-15 in a pile, mostly hardwood. I've seen them before limb the hardwood and load the logs out, but, they must be in hurry this time.

 

[PA. Woodsman]

I've seen stuff like that too from time to time, makes you sick, what a waste, but they don't care, big hurry go go go!

 

[sportbikerider78]

Government waste.

 

[baseroom]

SMH

 

[Fred Wright]

Been many a year since I saw this happen.... a fierce storm tore through along I-64 in Virginia and toppled trees for several miles. The interstate was cleared and reopened; it resembled one long logging camp for a few weeks.

Was reading about it in the paper afterward, a reporter interviewed the site superintendent. He said the trees were ground up and sold for pulpwood.

 

[CentralVAWoodHeat]

I'll put a positive spin on this even though I know it hurts all of us to see that much heating wood turned into another wood product. If used responsibly, that mulch will have just as positive effect on our lives and environment. My wife and I live on a working farm amidst many tree farms. While we use plenty of wood for heating fuel, we also use plenty of hardwood mulch to enrich and replenish the soil for our vegetable and herb gardens along with fruit trees. It also keeps weeds down naturally without herbicides, helps control erosion, and beautifies the landscape.

While I would love nothing more than the state to drop off all those trees off for me to process, there is still an upside to all that hardwood mulch.

 

[heavy hammer]

The utilities usually do the same thing. A large area about 20 acres about ten min from my house was cleared for a new substation chipped every last tree. You have to look at the positive like CentralVAWoodHeat said hopefully that mulch serves a better purpose.

 

[chopp056]

annoys the hell out of me to watch that go to waste. Plenty people around me would love the chance to pickup free wood from construction to heat their homes. Instead they buy a mega shredder and waste it. I keep trying to get the power company to give me the drop on when they leave trees lying on the ground going to waste after line clearings

 

[melloyello]

And then there's this device of total destruction. What a waste of wood. I see these getting used a lot around here in recent years.

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[LocustPocust]

Most companies/municipalities are so afraid of the liability that they'd rather run wood through a chipper than let somebody stop and take it. What if someone gets hurt.. what if the wood causes a chimney fire and they sue and the jury feels bad for them etc, etc. It's sad but that's where we are as a society. Ridiculous lawsuits are filed everyday and many are won everyday.

A few years ago there was a county a few north of where I live who's Highway Department kept the wood from projects on county property and along roadsides, cut, split, and stacked the wood. It was to be distributed to needy families. Not one person wanted it. It sat and rotted and eventually was hauled away and dumped.

People who want it can't have it. People who can have it don't want it. Go figure.

 

[D9H]

The BLM and Forest Service has made it extremely hard here in the west for people to cut firewood on public property, even dead trees which is the ones you want anyways. You can't drive more than 8 feet off the road, etc.. The environmentalists have pretty well stopped or slowed down a lot of logging on public ground too, at least here in Colorado. So now instead, we have record wildfires every summer and millions of acres of beetlekill forests. There are some who say that the beetlekill is caused by global warming, maybe, maybe not, however I know that responsible logging greatly increases a forests health.

I've seen it a few times: Many thousand acre forest fire, bring in the chipping equipment to control the erosion after the fire. BUT, you can't drive in that same forest to log or get firewood before the fire because that would cause erosion from your vehicle tracks.

Kind of a rant, but I hate to see trees wasted too. And some special interests really trying to save the trees has done more harm than good IMO

 

[Beer Belly]

 

[firefighterjake]

Waste of wood? Depends I guess on your perspective . . . and what the end plan for the chipped wood is . . .

If they are just chipping the wood and blowing it into the woods it will provide some mulch and will eventually fertilize the soil . . . but there's not a whole lot of economic gain there.

If they are chipping the wood and hauling it to be used for pulp, turned into wood pellets or used as bio-fuel then perhaps they are being fiscally responsible . . . even though wood burners would look at that and wish they had the wood.

 

[barmstrong2]

Waste of wood? Depends I guess on your perspective . . . and what the end plan for the chipped wood is . . .

If they are just chipping the wood and blowing it into the woods it will provide some mulch and will eventually fertilize the soil . . . but there's not a whole lot of economic gain there.

If they are chipping the wood and hauling it to be used for pulp, turned into wood pellets or used as bio-fuel then perhaps they are being fiscally responsible . . . even though wood burners would look at that and wish they had the wood.

They're throwing the chips into trailers, so, it's being used somewhere. On the interstate, I understand that time is the biggest factor. They'll have it all cleaned up in a few days chipping it into trailers. If they were limbing and loading logs out, they'd still need to chip the brush. All that work requires lane closures and more equipment. I get it, but, what a shame.

 

[rowerwet]

Around here it goes to wood fired power plants.

 

[firefighterjake]

I suspect you'll find this wood is either going for bio-fuel (our local high school for example uses chipped wood in a bio-fuel burner in the winter to offset the price of heating oil when it pricey) or to a pulp and paper mill (my neighbor recently had a guy come in, remove and chip most of his softwood on his lot behind my house.)

There is also the possibility that the State may have even had folks bid on the job if there was enough wood to make it worthwhile for them to come in and get . . . then again . . . we are talking about the State of Maine.

 

[Stinkpickle]

Around here, they get dozed into a pile and burned.

 

[peakbagger]

There is big demand for wood chips in areas with biomass boilers. The Fort Drum power plant was converted to woodchips from coal a few years back. In my area of NH, the loggers would much rather sell wood chips than deal with firewood. Most of VT schools burn wood chips and several hospitals in my area all have wood chip boilers.

The part that bothers me is if the trees had some good sawlogs. Generally the marketable logs get sorted for sawlog potential and then the junk left over gets chipped. If there is veneer grade tree, one log can sell for a couple of truckloads of chips. Of course most folks cutting firewood on their own lots don't save sawlogs as its not worth it for small volumes

 

[barmstrong2]

There aren't many biomass plants left. I think there's still one operating at a mill a little north from where they're cutting but most b of them have shut down.
I'm sure they're chipping then due to location. It's on the interstate so traffic concerns and safety trump value.
Bulldozed and burned? Sonofabitch!

 

[peakbagger]

There a still a few biomass plants around plus the big new one in Berlin NH.

 

[steviep]

I don't know what part of Maine you are from but I believe there is wood chip to energy plant in Kennebunk and I know there is one in both Portsmouth and Tamworth Nh. They are giving the loggers more money per cord than firewood and it is easier. In the end it comes down to economics for the loggers.