June 29th 1999

By Glenda Anderson
Ukiah Daily Journal
June 29, 1999

Mendocino Redwood Co. this will begin turning its lowly tan oaks into hardwood flooring instead of mere chips headed for pulp mills.

Not only will the project give tan oaks--considered by many to be weed trees and the scourge of conifer forests--a higher use, it will make removing them more cost effective, Mendocino Redwood Co. Sandy Dean said this morning.

"Last year we harvested roughly 65,000 tons of tan oak and we lost money on every log," Dean said.

The trees are being removed in an effort to restore the conifer forests the company bought from Louisiana-Pacific last year, he said, noting tan oaks have spread and become dominant in areas that have been over cut, beginning in the 1800s.

The goal, Dean said, is to reduce the tan oak inventory from 22 percent of the total standing inventory-in board feet- to 15 percent.

The floor making project also will benefit the local economy via an estimated 25 new jobs when the company reopens its Willits sawmill, which is undergoing a $1 million upgrade for the pilot flooring project.

It won't bet the first mill of its kind in the area--there are several small native hardwood flooring ventures in Humboldt and Mendocino Counties--but it will be the largest.

Dean said he anticipates the mill will produce 1.5 million square feet of flooring the first year, more after that.

The first of the tan oak flooring will be available in early 2000, he said.

Dean said an eight month study the company just completed indicates there is a market for the flooring, which, due to color variations and knots, will be marketed as "rustic."

"We're encouraged by the receptivity we have found," he said.

Until now, the best use the company found for the tan oaks was firewood, which Mendocino Redwood Co. began selling earlier this year, Dean said.

Tree parts not suitable for flooring will continue to be made into firewood, he said.

Not only will the hardwood flooring be make locally, Dean expects a local market to develop.

Currently, he noted, most hardwood flooring comes from the East.

A local market would not only Mendocino Redwood Co., it would help small land owners, who can't afford to have tan oaks removed to restore conifer dominance on their lands, Dean said.

If all goes well, the company could end up buying tan oaks from private land owners, he said.

While the tan oak is weed like, it has a function in the wildlife chain and Dean said the company is not trying to eliminate it, just reduce its numbers.

"We want to work to restore the balance," he said.

But an environmentalist who have been fighting the company's timber harvest plans are skeptical.

"I don't agree the wholesale removal of tan oak," said Mary Pjerrou, of the Greenwood Watershed Association, who was less than enthusiastic about the company's flooring project.

She said the damage to the redwood and other conifer forests needs to be addressed before forests are further exploited.

With the demise of conifers, the tan oaks have become a critical part of the forests, Pjerrou said.

"They are valuable for wildlife and shade and holding the steep ridges together," she said. "Are we now going to see the wholesale removal of tan oaks on top of everything else?"

Dean said the company has no plans to make flooring out of anything but tan oaks.

He said other non-conifer species--like madrone and chinkapin-- are less invasive than tan oak, which is not a true oak, and more important to the ecosystem.

Overall, he said the project has been met with enthusiasm in the county. "It's something people have been trying to do on the north coast for a long time," Dean said.

Copyright 1999 Ukiah Daily Journal