WOOD CHIPPING: NEW CHIP MILLS COMING TO SOUTHEAST MISSOURI

The construction of two new chip mills in Missouri has caused some concern by both urban and rural citizens.

Some people see chip mills as leading to the destruction of the state's forests.

Others see the chip mills in the same light as paper mills, resulting in less than pleasant smells over a wide area.

Conservation, environmental and chip mill officials are quick to point out there is no need for odor concern.

"Chip mills are a different situation," said Marvin Brown, chief of forestry with the state of Missouri. "They don't create pulp and paper. They just take whole wood and chip it."

"It's no different than a saw mill," said William Moore, Canal Wood Corp. director of operations for Canal Industries, which is building a $12 million wood chip operation along the Mississippi River near the Southeast Missouri Port Authority south of Cape Girardeau.

Willamette Industries, of Portland, Ore., has already opened a $10 million chip mill at Mill Springs, on the Black River, about eight miles south of Piedmont.

A smaller chip mill is operating near Neosho in Southwest Missouri.

"Some people see the chip mills as leading to the destruction of the state's forests," said Brown. "Others see them as a place to utilize low value trees and sawmill wastes, providing jobs in rural communities.

Many private forest land owners find themselves in the middle of the controversy," said Brown. "Eighty-five percent of the state's forest areas are owned by private landowners. Clearly, these mills must depend upon the private landowner to supply their wood needs."

The mills will utilize the parts of trees that logging companies leave as wastes. Many loggers cut off the top footage of trees and leave it to rot.

Waste wood is not the only resource the mill will employ. Moore said timber can be gathered from road expansion projects, farmers wishing to clear property and private timberland.

Moore said Canal Wood will only contract with private suppliers and is not looking to buy trees from publicly owned lands. The company also will contract only with loggers who have completed a special training course that emphasizes responsible harvesting of trees.

"We encourage loggers to use best-management procedures," Moore said. "You leave the land in basically the same way you found it."

Five-day programs for loggers and landowners were offered recently by the Missouri Forest Products Association (MFPA). The program includes a classroom session on forest management and four classes in the field, including cutting trees, chain saw operation and maintenance, with emphasis on safety.

Additional information, including costs, and future classes is available by calling the MFPA, 573-634-3252.

"We urge private landowners to use good management in their forests," said Brown. "The chip mills do offer new marketing opportunities."

The chip mills will use a lot of wood.

The Willamette operations will produce about 250,000 tons of chips a year. The Canal operation is looking to a yearly output of 300,000 tons of chips. The existing mill in Southwest Missouri produces about 80,000 tons of chip wood.

Chipping wood is not new.

Paper mills have been chipping wood all along, but they now find it less expensive to purchase chips from satellite chip mills.

The DOC will sponsor a special chip mill tour next week, at the Willamette operation. During the tour, forestry officials will provide some examples of good forest management.

"Our foresters are always willing to work with private landowner on forest management," said Brown.

A reason for locating plants in the area is that there is a volume of waste and other wood available.

"We did extensive surveys before settling on the Missouri locations," said Moore. "Forestry is a science, and we don't take that lightly. We're not going into an area and cut down all the trees."

Moore said the new mill would have a procurement area of about 100 miles.

"There are a lot of trees and waste wood in that wide area," said Moore. "It would be foolish for us to invest millions of dollars without having a consistent resource of wood."

Canal Wood is the largest supplier of wood in the Southeast. The chip mill here, located on about 40 acres of land at the Port Authority, is the company's fourth.

The facility here will employ about 15 people. Another 10 to 15 people will be hired in the region to purchase timber. And, the company will be working with from 150 to 200 independent contractors.

Canal Wood has no paper mills. The company sells to a number of paper processing mills, including Westvaco at Wickliffe, Ky.

The mill will be able to stock as much as 20,000 tons of timber on site for future processing. The mill will probably be shipping about five barges of chips a month in the first year of production.

Dan Overbey, port director, said the port commission has been pursuing a chip mill since 1991 and will realize the benefits of having a mill in the area.

The new Mills Spring Chip Co. wood processing plant recently opened operations.

The scale house and maintenance building have been built, and most of the equipment is in various stages of being installed.

"We have already chipped some debarked slabs," said plant manager Greg Thompson. Full operations were expected this month.