News
Blue Mountain Eagle
OFFICE
Continued from Page A1
Carpenter told the court
the new hire could take on new
cases over time and provide
continuity for a new deputy
district attorney.
Calling the loss of the
deputy district attorney a
“safety issue,” Commission-
er Rob Raschio asked Trea-
surer Julie Ellison to look for
places in the budget where
funds could be shifted to pay
for the deputy district attor-
ney position.
TIMBER
Continued from Page A1
market effectively to mass
timber, then it could be huge.”
Benefits,
skepticism
Locke describes himself
as a “wood guy.” Before join-
ing OFRI, he ran a marketing
agency, Pipeline Public Re-
lations, in Portland, serving
clients in the construction in-
dustry.
Locke is the first director
of forest products for OFRI,
a position created in 2015
and partially funded by a
two-year, $250,000 Wood
Innovation Grant from the
U.S. Forest Service. He said
the job was a perfect fit.
“They wanted to promote
Oregon wood products into
commercial construction,”
Locke said. “That has al-
ways made sense to me.”
First, Locke said, there
are cost savings on construc-
tion and installation with
mass timber. He explained
how each floor panel at Al-
bina Yard was installed in
three hours, whereas with
steel and concrete it would
have taken twice as big a
crew up to a week to do the
job.
Then there is the environ-
mental element. Production
of CLT emits 26 percent less
greenhouse gases than mak-
ing steel, and 50 percent less
than concrete. Carbon 12,
the Portland condo building,
also stores up to 577 metric
tons of carbon dioxide in the
wood — equivalent to taking
roughly 105 cars off the road
for one year.
CLT was initially devel-
oped to create a high-end
Raschio noted that the
district attorney’s position is
paid by the state, but depu-
ty district attorney positions
across the state are funded
either by grants or through
a county budget. He called
the system of funding deputy
district attorneys with grants
“a crazy idea.”
Jim Sproul noted that
Grant County Counsel Ron
Yockim may retire soon and
the court could consider con-
solidating the district attor-
ney’s office with the county
counsel as a way to pay for
a deputy district attorney.
use for lumber. Locke said it
could also provide a market
for small-diameter trees and
the wildfire fuels building
up in western forests.
Others, however, have
tempered expectations. Ac-
cording to University of
Washington and Washington
State University researchers,
the predicted demand for
softwood lumber to manu-
facture CLT panels is still
less than 1 percent of the
annual Pacific Northwest
timber harvest, making it a
boutique industry at best.
Doug Heiken, conserva-
tion and restoration coordi-
nator for the environmental
group Oregon Wild, de-
scribed CLT as a side prod-
uct of the timber industry
that would not change its
overall carbon footprint. He
said there is no guarantee
wood for mass timber would
come from sustainable for-
estry practices, and not in-
dustrial clear-cuts.
“Mass timber isn’t really
that different from any other
timber in that way,” Heiken
said.
Building codes
The main limiting factor,
Locke said, are the interna-
tional building codes, which
are slowly being adapted to
catch up to tall wood build-
ings.
In April, the International
Code Council moved to up-
date codes allowing for wood
buildings up to 18 stories, al-
though the proposed changes
would not be adopted until
2021 at the earliest.
Oregon took the extraordi-
nary step in August of adopt-
ing the recommendations
under its Statewide Alternate
Method — the first state to do
so. Locke said mass timber
Sproul said other Oregon
counties combine district at-
torney and county counsel
offices.
Raschio asked Ellison to
look into Sproul’s idea, not-
ing that while it might help
solve the question of how to
fund a deputy district attor-
ney, it would not solve the
problem of funding a victim
intervention specialist and
special investigator.
Grant County Judge Scott
Myers, however, noted that
Yockim is paid $2,750 per
month, which is not enough
to fund a replacement
Wednesday, September 19, 2018
deputy district attorney.
Emergency shelter
Raschio also pointed out
that the VAWA grant provid-
ed 0.75 full-time employee
funding for the Heart of Grant
County director, and the group
will need a director to help in its
current efforts to build an emer-
gency shelter.
The Heart of Grant County,
a nonprofit established in 2008
to provide advocacy and sup-
port services for victims of do-
mestic violence, sexual assault,
dating violence and stalking,
moved into a small house in
Contributed photo/Shanna Hall Photography
The new mass plywood plant at Freres Lumber Co. near
Lyons.
has passed every required test
and is proving to be just as
safe as concrete or steel.
Such tests are conducted
at the TallWood Design Insti-
tute, a collaborative research
program of the University of
Oregon College of Design
and Oregon State University’s
College of Forestry and Col-
lege of Engineering.
Iain Macdonald, associate
director of the institute, said
20 to 30 professors are work-
ing in research and product
development, studying fire
performance, building phys-
ics, environmental impact and
economics.
“Urbanization is going
to drive a huge demand for
housing around the world,”
Macdonald said. “Our role is
to do applied research on this,
to put together educational
programs for stakeholders
like architects, structural en-
gineers and construction com-
panies.”
Macdonald acknowledged
fears about mass timber, es-
pecially regarding fire safety.
Fire tests involve roasting
panels in a furnace at 1,832
degrees Fahrenheit for up
to two hours, and Macdon-
ald said the results so far are
promising.
While the surface does
char, Macdonald said the inte-
rior of the panel remains insu-
lated from the heat. He com-
pared it to throwing a whole
log onto a campfire, versus
small pieces of kindling.
William Silva, pre-con-
struction manager for Swin-
erton Builders — the Portland
company that built the First
Tech’s Hillsboro headquarters
— said that as product testing
and building codes come to-
gether fellow builders should
get over their fears.
“It’s become more than
just a progressive concept,”
Silva said. “I see a lot of de-
velopers looking at this as a
value proposition.”
Peavy Hall
Not everything has gone
smoothly for mass timber de-
velopment in Oregon.
Just outside Macdonald’s
office at the OSU College of
Forestry in Corvallis, work is
underway on the new Oregon
Forest Science Complex that
will house the College of For-
estry, TallWood Design Insti-
tute and replace Peavy Hall on
campus.
The project is supposed to
be a showcase building for the
materials, but was hampered
earlier this year by a costly
and potentially dangerous
setback. On March 14, two of
seven layers in a third-story
CLT panel measuring 30 feet
long by 4 feet wide, weighing
June 2016 that provided of-
fice space and an apartment
for emergency shelter service.
Prior to that, the only shelter
services the organization could
provide were at local motels or
shelters outside the area.
Plans are in the works to
build a facility to provide office
space and emergency shelter
needs. The organization pur-
chased a property in John Day,
and a Phase 1 environmental
study assessment of the proper-
ty was conducted using $3,100
from Business Oregon.
The court on Sept. 12 ap-
proved a request from Eco-
nomic Development Coordi-
nator Sally Bartlett to submit
a pre-application on behalf of
Heart of Grant County for a
community development block
grant from the U.S. Department
of Housing and Urban Devel-
opment.
If approved, Heart of
Grant County will be invit-
ed to submit a formal request.
The estimated grant amount is
$980,000, which may not be
enough to complete the project,
according to board minutes.
Cost estimates of $366 per
square foot for the building run
to about $1.2 million.
a half-ton, delaminated and
fell 14 feet onto the second
floor below. Panels for Peavy
Hall were manufactured by
D.R. Johnson.
Nobody was hurt, but
the incident did bring con-
struction to a halt while offi-
cials investigated what went
wrong. Evaluations were con-
ducted by the general contrac-
tor, Andersen Construction, as
well as D.R. Johnson and APA
— The Engineered Wood As-
sociation. OSU also hired
KPFF Consulting Engineers
of Portland as an independent
consultant.
They determined D.R.
Johnson employees erred
when they pre-heated lum-
ber in stacks outside during
a period of cold weather be-
fore gluing them together into
CLT. This caused premature
curing of the adhesive, weak-
ening the bond.
Valerie Johnson, president
of D.R. Johnson Wood In-
novations, said the incident
was the product of a “well-in-
tentioned, but unfortunate”
change in the manufacturing
process. She said the compa-
ny has added quality control
measures, and built a cli-
mate-controlled glue layup
room in its facility to ensure
delamination does not happen
again.
“We are confident we have
rectified the problem perma-
nently and have an even better
production process as a re-
sult,” Johnson said.
Andersen
Construction
authorized D.R. Johnson to
resume making panels for
Peavy Hall, and construction
resumed in July.
In its project specifica-
tions, OSU stipulates that
CLT components for Peavy
must be manufactured within
300 miles of Corvallis. D.R.
Johnson is the only certified
CLT fabricator that meets the
requirement.
OSU spokesman Steve
Clark said engineers are still
determining how many pan-
els already installed at the
complex may need to be re-
placed. The project is divided
into three zones, with Zone 3
needing 45 of 71 panels re-
placed. Analyses are not yet
competed for Zones 1 and 2.
“Ultimately there is some
expense and delay,” Clark
said. The 95,000-square-foot
complex is now expected to
open by January 2020. The
total cost is now $79 million,
of which $30 million comes
from state bonds, $38 million
in donations and $11 million
in university funding.
Despite the problem, sup-
porters of CLT do not ap-
pear to be fazed. Clark said
the university remains “very
committed and confident” in
the future of CLT. Locke de-
scribed it as a “blip” in the
process. Macdonald said it
was an anomaly.
“We really have not
heard about this happening
on a CLT project around the
world,” Macdonald said. “It’s
good that this deviation in the
manufacturing process was
caught. We’re not concerned
about the long-term impact.”
Eagle Cap Excursion Train
Saturdays: Sept. 29, Wine & Cheese Train
October 6 & 13, Train Robberies
October 20, Season’s Bounty
Elgin Depot
800.323.7330
Descriptions & Tickets at www.eaglecaptrainrides.com
Gordon Larson
for Grant County Commissioner
A Vote For Grant County’s Future
Gordon is a local rancher,
businessman, and retired
Oregon State Police
Lieutenant. He served
for 12 years on the Grant
County School District #3
Board of Directors. Let
him put that experience
to work for Grant County.
BARGAIN MATINEE IN ( ) Adults $7
ALL FILMS $6 ON TIGHTWAD TUESDAY
MOVIE SCHEDULE SEPT 21 - SEPT 27
Monday, September 24 th , 2018, Prairie City Senior Center
79904
Tuesday, September 25 th , 2018, Mount Vernon Community Center
Visit Gordon’s Campaign Page on Facebook, or GordonLarsonforGrantCountyCommissioner.com
Set in the forested canyon
near Lyons, Freres Lumber
Co. has pioneered a new form
of mass timber to sustain its
business and 470 employees.
The company, founded in
1922, debuted its new mass
plywood factory in December
2017, a sparkling $40 million,
four-acre facility that manu-
factures panels using veneer
lumber up to 12 feet wide, 48
feet long and 24 inches thick.
Tyler Freres, co-owner and
vice president of sales, said
the company received patents
for its mass plywood panels
earlier this year. He believes
mass plywood is a more effi-
cient product than CLT, using
20 percent less wood while
holding up in every facet of
construction.
“This is a truly unique fa-
cility,” Freres said. “We had
to design all the processes
ourselves.”
Freres, who lives in nearby
Stayton, said the prosperity
of local schools and commu-
nities is tied to the success of
the timber industry. Mass tim-
ber can be a lifeline, he said,
though it will require a more
productive approach to thin-
ning federal forests to boost
volume.
In the 1970s, Oregon’s
timber harvest totaled more
than 8 billion board-feet, ac-
cording to the state Office
of Economic Analysis. To-
day, the timber harvest has
dropped by more than half
that amount, and logging on
federal lands is down nearly
90 percent.
“It’s been an absolute di-
saster, losing timber,” Freres
said.
Freres said mass plywood
will be key to supporting his
family’s business for another
100 years. He said the com-
pany receives many inquiries
from builders interested in
mass plywood.
“The potential is almost
limitless,” he said.
1809 First Street • Baker City • (541)523-5439
Meet the Candidate Nights
Thursday, September 27 th , 2018, Dayville Church
Rural prosperity
SEARCHING (PG-13) After his
16-year-old daughter goes missing, a
father breaks into her laptop to look for
clues to find her.
FRI & SAT
(4:10) 7:10 9:35
SUNDAY
(4:10) 7:10
MON-THURS
7:10
THE PREDATOR (R)
When the universe’s most lethal hunter
returns to Earth, only a ragtag crew of
ex-soliders and a disgruntled science
teacher can save the human race.
FRI & SAT
(4:20) 7:00 9:30
SUNDAY
(4:20) 7:00
MON-THURS
7:00
THE NUN (R)
Horror. A priest confronts a malevolent
force in the form of a demonic nun.
FRI & SAT
(4:20) 7:20 9:40
SUNDAY
(4:20) 7:20
MON-THURS
7:20
$9 Adult, $7 Senior (60+), Youth
79492
A10