community
february16
2017
17
Bridge Street Bits
By Karen Miller
HI EVERYONE! I am happy to not have to type
this underwater, and bet you are happy not to
have to ready this underwater either. Thanks
to WOEC for once again working round the
clock to help bail many of us out of the cold
with no lights and heat. Hang in there, sunny
and warmer weather is just around the corner!
THE SENIOR CENTER BOARD was able to
meet this month. Thank you to all my fellow
members who work hard to come together
and make some not-so-easy and time
consuming decisions for the current and future
Vernonia Senior Center. A SPECIAL thank you
to board member Tobie Finzel for working so
hard to put together a notebook with dividers
for each of us to keep our information in one
spot! Thanks Josette at City Hall for running
off all the paperwork. Our teamwork is great!
TAKE NOTE: An AARP Safe Driving Class is
scheduled for Monday, March 6 at 9 am at the
American Legion Hall here in Vernonia. The
cost is $15 for AARP members and $20 for non
members. Check with your insurance agent
for reduced rates for taking this class. Please
call me to reserve your spot: Karen at (503)
429 -0273
NOMINATIONS for Columbia County My Fair
Lady Court Vernonia representative are now
being taken. Nomination forms available at
the RSVP office in St. Helens or submit names
and phone numbers at our office at the
Learning Center.
A FREE MEAL will be served at the American
Legion Hall Building on March 29 at 11:30 am.
All are welcomed… Senior Center members or
not. Sponsored by a private supporter of the
Vernonia School Bond issue. See you there!
program consisting of Meals on Wheels and
Meal Vouchers. Donations to this program are
tax deductible. Thank you for considering a
donation to be sent to Vernonia Senior Center
at 959 Bridge Street, Vernonia, OR 97064.
KUDOS also to the Black Iron Grill
for braving the storm and preparing meals
for those in need on that dark and stormy
day when the electricity was out. And for
the volunteer deliverers who got through
the weather to deliver those days; you are
appreciated.
Call me with any senior news or questions:
(503) 429-0273.
SENIOR SIGN OFF: A person doesn’t realize
how much he has to be thankful for until he
has to pay taxes on it.
SEVERAL BIG THANK YOU’s are in order in this
( P.S. Call for FREE tax help by AARP volunteers.
issue:
KUDOS to Josh Johnston from Vernonia To see if you qualify call the St. Helens Senior
Center (503) 397-3377)
U.S. Bank for their kind and needed donation
to our Support Our Seniors Program. Thank
you to Harry Wilson for bringing this program See ya’ around town.
to the attention of U.S. Bank.
These funds support our senior meal
Vernonia Senior Center • 939 Bridge Street • (503) 429-3912
Tall Wood Buildings Rise in the Northwest
size, including door and window open-
ings, with state-of-the art CNC (Com-
puter Numerical Controlled) routers,
capable of making complex cuts with
high precision. Finished CLT panels are
exceptionally stiff, strong, and stable,
handling load transfer on all sides.”
According to the Association,
CLT is also lightweight, results in far less
waste at the construction site, has lower
construction costs than steel or concrete,
makes on-site assembly and installation
fast and easy, and improves thermal and
acoustic performance while meeting or
exceeding seismic and fire safety codes.
Mass timber construction could bol-
ster jobs and economies in struggling
rural communities
Once the backbone of North-
west economies, timber towns have been
struggling since the era of old-growth
logging on federal lands came to a close
and the network of smaller, community-
based mills has shifted to consolidated,
more modernized mills along the I-5
corridor. The US Department of Agri-
culture (USDA) sees enormous poten-
tial for revitalizing rural economies by
bolstering production of CLT, estimating
that such “next-generation wood prod-
ucts” could create up to 85,000 jobs in
struggling rural communities. Last year,
along with the Softwood Lumber Board,
they awarded $3 million to incentivize
tall wood building projects, including
Lever’s Framework building for Benefi-
cial State Bank.
Not only could the growth of
tall wood buildings boost job creation
in the timber industry, but it could also
be a boon to manufacturing. Of the ap-
proximately 26 CLT processing facilities
worldwide, there are only three in North
America. In order to keep up with de-
mand for engineered wood, we have the
opportunity to open new CLT manufac-
turing plants that could source lumber
from local mills and accommodate the
growing need for CLT and related prod-
ucts.
Renewed and targeted invest-
ments in our timber and forest products
industry could lead to a transformative
opportunity for tall wood buildings to
address growing wildfire and forest
continued from page 5
scale of forest restoration across the
West. There are currently an estimated
nine million acres in Oregon and Wash-
ington alone at a high risk of fire on
the east side of the Cascades and thou-
sands of acres of overly dense forests on
the west side of the mountains in need
of thinning. While naturally-occurring
The type of wood used to construct CLT can come from
very small logs and a variety of species, which offers
manufacturers the ability to make CLT out of restoration
forest products — small logs from forest restoration thin-
ning. Investments in new processing facilities to marry the
growing demand for CLT with the ample supply of small
logs from overly dense forests could reduce the risk of
severe wildfires, improve habitat, water quality, and forest
health, create local jobs and boost rural economies.
health threats facing our region’s forests,
restore jobs in rural timber communi-
ties, and improve the way we manage
our forests with the urgency brought on
by our changing climate.
Tall wood buildings offer an unprece-
dented opportunity to change the way
we manage our forests
The inherent environmental
benefits of wood are clear. Unlike steel
or concrete, which have heavy carbon
footprints, forests store carbon — both in
the woods as well as in long-lived wood
products including building materials.
Since concrete is the second most highly
utilized substance on the planet (besides
water), accounting for up to eight per-
cent of global CO2 emissions, shifting
to wood from concrete in the building
industry could have a significant impact
on carbon sequestration.
But there is an even greater po-
tential upside to CLT to consider: the
opportunity to increase the pace and
wildfires are an important component to
forest health, especially in the drier for-
ests on the east side of the Cascades and
in Southern Oregon, prescribed burns
and forest thinning can mimic natural
fires and support forest health and wa-
tershed restoration goals. However, with
local milling capacity in our dry forest
regions at a lower level than nearly any
time in the last century, forest health and
restoration projects in these areas often
struggle to pencil out. They can be ex-
pensive to plan and implement and often
lack operational mills within a reason-
able hauling distance that also accept the
size and type of trees being harvested.
Where does CLT come in? The
type of wood used to construct CLT can
come from very small logs and a variety
of species, which offers manufacturers
the ability to make CLT out of restora-
tion forest products — small logs from
forest restoration thinning. Investments
in new processing facilities to marry the
growing demand for CLT with the ample
supply of small logs from overly dense
forests could reduce the risk of severe
wildfires, improve habitat, water quality,
and forest health, create local jobs and
boost rural economies.
The growing interest in mass
timber buildings could create markets
for restoration forestry, but it could also
reinforce business as usual — intensive,
industrial forestry that has degraded na-
tive fish and wildlife habitat, contrib-
uted to serious water quality problems
around the region, consolidated milling
infrastructure, and promoted a boom-
and-bust economic cycle for many rural
communities.
To better understand the excit-
ing opportunities that the growth of CLT
provides, Ecotrust is working to help
answer a few questions particularly rel-
evant to our region:
• How can the growing mass timber mar-
ket help increase the pace and scale of
restoration forestry in the Pacific North-
west?
• How much timber of what species and
size could we harvest in Oregon and
Washington’s dry forests over the next
20 years under carefully-planned resto-
ration forest harvests? And how much
of this supply would be suited for CLT
production?
• Where are the hot spots for restoration
forestry and potential CLT facilities?
To hear more about the opportunities,
challenges and potential climate change
benefits presented by good wood in
building projects, join Brent Davies at
the Mass Timber Conference, hosted in
Portland on March 30.
This article was originally published in
the Ecotrust newsletter on February 11,
2017. Reprinted with permission.