June 29th 1999

By Mike Geniella                                                                                                                                                     

The Press Democrat
June 29, 1999

UKIAH -- Mendocino Redwood Co. said Monday it will re-open a closed Willits sawmill and hire 25 additional workers as part of a $1million pilot project to turn a native tree considered a pest into valuable flooring products. Sandy Dean, president of Mendocino Redwood, said the company is "very encouraged'' by eight months of studies it conducted into ways to use the tan oak commercially.

"We believe we can make this project work,'' said Dean.

Tan oak is a hardwood tree species that in recent decades has spread rapidly through redwood and Douglas fir forests along the North Coast because of heavy logging in the past. In some areas, tan oak has even begun to dominate what traditionally were stands of softwood trees like redwood and fir.

Mendocino Redwood, a new company formed last year to acquire 230,000 acres of cut-over timberlands once owned by Louisiana-Pacific Corp., found that nearly one in four trees left standing on the land were tan oak. "Currently, we're losing money on each tan oak log harvested from our forests,'' said Dean.

Some industry leaders on Monday applauded Mendocino Redwood's announcement, saying the experimental project if successful could help rejuvenate the region's timber-based economy.

"Everyone who lives in Mendocino County should be pulling for Mendocino Redwood to succeed,'' said Art Harwood, whose family operates a mill in Branscomb. "If it does, it could mark a major turning point in the North Coast timber industry.''

Dean said eight months of studies led Mendocino Redwood to embark on its new milling venture, a sharp departure from how timber companies previously have handled the proliferation of tan oaks.

For years, L-P and other timber companies have viewed the hardy tree as a pesky intruder that threatened to overtake a timber economy driven by redwood and fir lumber products. In attempts to control the spread of tan oak in recent years, L-P drew the ire of environmentalists in the early 1990s by hiring workers to hack and spray herbicides on young tan oak trees spreading throughout its lands.

Mendocino Redwood's Dean said Monday he believes his new company has come up with a more realistic approach.

"We believe by converting tan oak into a viable commercial product, we can correct the current imbalance,'' said Dean. He said by logging tan oak so that it can be milled into flooring, Mendocino Redwood hopes to reduce its current inventory from 22 to 15 percent.

By late summer, Dean said the company expects to begin sawing tan oak logs at the former L-P sawmill north of Willits. From there the planks of rough-cut tan oak will be taken to Mendocino Redwood's Ukiah mill complex for drying and refinishing into flooring, said Dean.

"We plan to have commercial quantities of flooring products available by early 2000,'' he said.

Dean said major home improvement retailers, including Home Depot, the nation's largest, have already been introduced to samples of the flooring.

"Retailers seem very receptive,'' said Dean.

Currently, tan oak is seldom used commercially but woodworkers and artisans have long touted its beauty and durability when transformed into flooring, trim and in some instances cabinetry.

Dean said during test runs, Mendocino Redwood produced about 15,000 square feet of tan oak flooring. "We think we've learned how to successfully convert tan oak into a finished hardwood product on a commercial scale,'' said Dean.

Copyright 1999 The Press Democrat