Inexpensive beetle-kill wood to be available at Front Range sort yards

The pine beetle's march over the Continental Divide may provide significant business opportunities for entrepreneurs in the coming months, as a result of a collaborative effort between two Colorado state agencies, the U.S. Forest Service and Front Range counties.

“We've already moved a significant amount of wood into Front Range markets this spring, and expect to be moving even more in September and October,” said Craig Jones, program manager for Peak to Peak Wood, a collaborative effort managed through the Colorado State Forest Service (CSFS) and Colorado State Parks. “The tree mortality is very lamentable, but there will be a great supply of inexpensive wood available to both established forestry business and up and coming entrepreneurs who may wish to introduce new products.”

Peak to Peak Wood's novel public sort yard concept is partially funded by a $100,000 Working Partnerships Grant from the U.S. Forest Service and reduces the transportation cost, as well as many storage and sorting issues, for businesses that can turn logs into products. Logs, available for pickup or delivery in the Front Range, are cut and trimmed for use as saw logs, post and pole (fencing) and material more suitable for firewood, biomass or fiber.

Peak to Peak Wood will not be transporting wood during the height of the pine beetle flights, and some sites are not accepting any infected wood from mid-July to Sept. 1. However, program managers expect both public and private landowners will continue to cut down dead or dying trees, creating a great deal of wood product that will be moved into markets after the beetle flight.

“Most of this wood won't find its way to larger sawmills, given the current state of the construction industry,” Jones said. “But small and portable mills can be the beneficiaries of this inexpensive product, and we're hoping that small businesses will also emerge, for instance in landscape products or the animal bedding and mulch industries, that will be sustainable over the long term.”

Participating municipal governments have established four sort yards where private landowners can drop off wood: The Gilpin County wood collection site, about five miles north of Black Hawk on Colorado 119; Boulder County's Meeker Park site; Larimer County's Stove Prairie site; and the Estes Park site, near Moraine Avenue and Elm Road. Google maps of all site locations can be found on the Peak to Peak Web site at www.peaktopeakwood.org. Business interested in purchasing logs can contact sort yard managers through the Web site or post messages on the site seeking specific material.

Most of the wood, whether dry or green, will carry the blue stain from fungus left by the beetle, which gives the wood a distinctive, often-sought-after, look.

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