The pile of lost scrounges

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holland_patrick

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Hearth Supporter
Nov 7, 2010
168
Southington CT
The town I work in is going to chip this stuff up.....I think it might be a cord or maybe a face cord....

it's all from Irene

;)


[Hearth.com] The pile of lost scrounges


I think i could get some of it
 
Wow!!! A wood scroungers dream! I would love to get loose in there.
 
Wow, nice pic!
 
That is definitely a wood scrounger's dream! Can you get in there and have at it? Do they have fences to keep you out...?
 
DOT has a spot like that in the median of the Interstate here with a no trespassing sign on it I pass on the way to work every morning. Just plain wrong.
 
What a shame.They should make it available to local residents,even if you sign a waiver in case of injury.My county has a soil conservation district,basically a place to dump off brush,leaves etc.I used to be in there about 30 times a year and they allowed you to take whatever you could load by hand,no chainsaws,and my goal was to leave with at least half a truckload of firewood which I usually did.Now no more due to emerald ash bored,they chip it all.
 
Yep i can get in there if need be but i have about 20 cord at my inlaws that still needs to be cut chopped and stacked so i'm not being to aggressive with it. just thought it was a good pic and like you said a shame
 
Holy Wood Batman!! I was just about to click back to the wood shed forum when I happen to glance at your location. I live in Cheshire CT. Where is this pile located and could a non-Southington resident get in there?
 
Well i live in southington... BUT they had very little damage from irene 8 fire calls and less then 3 % out...

Now where i work in ridgefield we did 200 calls related to the storm and 100% power out...

and nope they are going to chip it all kinda sucks but it's a rich town and no one here wants to cut it up (except for town high way)
 
I just don't get it! They could probably substantially reduce the amount of wood for free to wood burners in turn reducing their costs to chip it up. Am I missing something?
 
Ken S said:
What a shame.They should make it available to local residents,even if you sign a waiver in case of injury.My county has a soil conservation district,basically a place to dump off brush,leaves etc.I used to be in there about 30 times a year and they allowed you to take whatever you could load by hand,no chainsaws,and my goal was to leave with at least half a truckload of firewood which I usually did.Now no more due to emerald ash bored,they chip it all.
Click to expand...

No chainsaws? No problem. Two man saw and a buddy, lol.
 
We've got a local park here that a main road runs through (Hines Drive, and Hines Park). There's downed ash everywhere, and they won't let anyone in w/ a chainsaw. If you can move it by hand, you can have it, but no cutting it up.

Sucks, as everything that's easy access is pretty damn big. Maybe if you had a low trailer you could get it up, but not into my 4x4 p/u!

K
 
I hear you on the waste. Instead of chipping they just burn it. They recently burned about 15 miles of woodpiles generated from widening the highway to 4 lanes and the local park burned about 30 cords of tops a couple years ago.
 
Just one more example of the waste in this wonderful country. But it seems most of the city fathers don't realize how valuable that wood could be to someone and then they wouldn't need to buy LP or fuel oil or natural gas. Such is the way of government today.
 
Aha. Maybe they do know, but if one burns wood and does not purchase oil, natural gas or propane they lose tax revenue, therefore why would they give it to us for free?
 
Naw Greg, I think it is just a case of not thinking or perhaps over thinking. For sure, someone might get hurt while getting the wood and then the city could get sued. It's a no win situation.
 
Oh yeah, at least a face-cord there ;-) similar stories all over the place and it's not just gov't either. Tree companies all over the country are chipping and landfilling vast amounts if wood every day. Sad.
I think someone smarter than me needs to invent a system to efficiently dry and burn woodchips. Obtaining fuel wouldn't be much of a problem.
 
Backwoods Savage said:
Naw Greg, I think it is just a case of not thinking or perhaps over thinking. For sure, someone might get hurt while getting the wood and then the city could get sued. It's a no win situation.
Click to expand...

yeah..probably liability.

but what if there was a lottery and have 4 or so winners go in and take it all. i'd bet firewood sellers would LOVE to have access to lengths they didn't have to drop or skid. sell the lottery tickets for $10 a piece. the town would make a few hundred dollars and the woodsellers would have access to free wood (minus the cost of lottery tickets). all lottery winners sign a waiver and assume all risk. i realize this is not alot of wood in this pic....but the piles in NY are mighty large.

i'm just trying to come up with a solution so PRIMO FIREWOOD DOESN"T GET CHIPPED UP FOR NOTHING.

hell, in alaska they have the roadkill moose lottery, giving residents acces to 1000 lbs of organic meat instead of taking it to the landfill. for god's sake, can't a township find a creative way to distribute firewood?? and with oil at $3.50??

OT
 
We have situations like this because of the nature of bureaucracies and how tax funded entities have little regard for the origin of the money they spend. Since they aren't operated like a business they don't care about the costs of operation, and since you and I don't sit at the table when contracts are negotiated or salaries (or raises) are discussed the situation grows to enormous proportions before those who pay finally say no more. Since these paychecks simply appear out of thin air there's no consideration for the wallets where the tax dollars come from.

I liken it to IA DOT where the sole purpose of their positions appears to be where to build new roads, because if we finally figured out that we had more roads than we could currently maintain there would be little use for those positions...and heaven forbid that the state employment level should ever contract!

Certainly if all the chippings were used by the operation that would be one thing, but to burn mountains of viable heating fuel purely because they don't want to consider the idea of giving it away is a huge mistake. A good operation would look at how they could turn that byproduct into either 1) more income or 2) less disposal expense or liability. A huge burn pile is a liability in itself because it could get out of hand and destroy countless other acres in close proximity. Further, a huge burn pile is an inefficient burn and creates an enormous amount of pollution, yet these things are never considered. We regulate the bejeezus out of diesel emissions but stand by and watch while the state starts a fire that makes the emissions level of the US population of cars look like a match.

It should be cut, hauled and stored by those who can use it, and if it needs to be treated for pests do it prior to leaving the location.

IMO too little common sense applied in situations such as this.

my .02, and sorry for the rant.
 
Sorry, I see tree companies chipping good wood all the time. The couple I've talked to say they dump all the chips unless the customer wants them or someone stops them & offers them an easy dump spot. Same goes for the Logs too big to chip, other than a very small %age of straight, easy splitting Oak that they make into firewood. They can make more $ quicker by trimming another tree and dumping the chips than messing around cutting & splitting firewood. It doesn't take government to create massive waste, just undervaluing our resources.
Incidentally, there's a big rehab going on in a natural City park near me. Chips are going out by the truckload, but there are also log piles left here and there for scroungers. If this were a private company do you think they'd be more likely to let scroungers come in & cut on their land?
 
midwestcoast said:
Sorry, I see tree companies chipping good wood all the time. The couple I've talked to say they dump all the chips unless the customer wants them or someone stops them & offers them an easy dump spot. Same goes for the Logs too big to chip, other than a very small %age of straight, easy splitting Oak that they make into firewood. They can make more $ quicker by trimming another tree and dumping the chips than messing around cutting & splitting firewood. It doesn't take government to create massive waste, just undervaluing our resources.
Incidentally, there's a big rehab going on in a natural City park near me. Chips are going out by the truckload, but there are also log piles left here and there for scroungers. If this were a private company do you think they'd be more likely to let scroungers come in & cut on their land?
Click to expand...

Valid points, and I'm not suggesting in any way that my view is the only one. It is a general underpricing of resources and waste. You are right, it doesn't take govt to create waste, but they're the biggest publicly funded entity that does so.

In smaller more rural communities I think giving away firewood for those who will cut it is probably more frequent. The bigger the community the less likely it is that you'll be able to find someone in the city or state level who will make this kind of accommodation, which is unfortunate.

Steve A
 
glenlloyd said:
...In smaller more rural communities I think giving away firewood for those who will cut it is probably more frequent. The bigger the community the less likely it is that you'll be able to find someone in the city or state level who will make this kind of accommodation, which is unfortunate.
Steve A
Click to expand...

Agreed and same goes for larger companies. I could prob gather waste wood from the property of my local bar or cafe, but ask the same thing at the GE plant or Bank of America offices & the chances are pretty slim.
 
Around here there is a market for wood chips . . . either to go to the mill to become wood pellets or sold as wood chips to bio-mass burners -- i.e. our local high school has a wood chip burner.
 
Just an update...

They have let people come in and cut wood there, and take what ever they want. infact other guy here took 4 truck load out already... the pile will be there for a while at this rate


south st in ridgefield
 
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