On a cold and windy day off the coast of Alabama, a team of researchers from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts gathers, conducting the first test outside a laboratory for a potential new solution to a challenging problem: cleaning oil spills from water.

The invention, the Flame Refluxer, is “very simple,” says Ali Rangwala, a professor of fire protection engineering: Imagine a giant Brillo pad of copper wool sandwiched between layers of copper screen, with springy copper coils attached to the top.

“The coils collect the heat from the flame and they transmit it through the copper blanket,” Rangwala explains.

The goal is to make a hotter, faster and more complete burn that leaves less pollution.

Cleaning oil from water is a challenge, especially on the open sea. That was dramatically evident seven years ago, when a massive oil spill during the BP disaster polluted the Gulf of Mexico.

Responders typically use three cleanup methods in an oil spill: skimmers and oil booms to soak it up, dispersants to break it up, and fire to burn it up. That’s called in-situ, or in-place, burning.

The federal government is backing research on the Flame Refluxer, which supporters hope will provide an effective and ecologically sound alternative.

For the test — at the U.S. Coast Guard’s Joint Maritime Test Facility on Little Sand Island in Mobile Bay — workers place the blanket inside a ring-shaped floating protective barrier, or fire boom, in a concrete pool. Oil is pumped from a nearby tank, and a long torch-like lighter sets it afire.

Before long, the fire is roaring with flames up to 12 feet high.

Rangwala monitors by video in a nearby research shed. “It’s looking very good,” he observes.

Engineers are tracking the fire’s heat and the emissions that are being captured by a strategically placed windsock downwind of the test burn.

The device potentially could reduce air pollution, as well as the layer of tar that remains after oil burns and sinks to the ocean floor, threatening marine life.

Rangwala says the copper blanket was designed to capture any remaining residue, but they’re finding that the tar is burning off as well.

He says the test indicates a hotter, quicker, cleaner burn.

“Currently it’s about three times faster than baseline,” he says. “And the smoke is also grayish in color, compared to black.”

The gray smoke, with less soot, is one of the things that Karen Stone is looking for.

“The lighter it is, the cleaner it is,” says Stone, an oil spill response engineer with the federal Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.

The agency has invested $1.5 million to develop the Flame Refluxer, and is also paying for other new technology.

It’s an effort to be better prepared to respond, after the 2010 BP disaster in the Gulf revealed some major gaps. For example, the country didn’t have enough fire boom on hand and had to scramble to borrow supply from other countries.

“Once you have a spill, it really gets the attention,” says Stone. “We realize, wow, we really need to advance it and make it better, improve it, for when it happens again.”

Stone says the technology that is working in the Gulf environment also shows promise for responding to oil spills in the Arctic. But it is likely 5 to 10 years from being used in an actual disaster.

The next step is finding the best way to deploy and test it in open water.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

One of the themes that developed on Day 1 of Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch’s hearings is that Democrats plan to make an issue of what they say is the Supreme Court’s pro-business leanings. In their opening statements on Monday, Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee argued that Gorsuch is likely to continue the trend.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island alleged that when the court’s majority is made of Republican appointees, the narrow 5-4 decisions “line up to help corporations against humans.”

Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin said that the court under Chief Justice John Roberts is often called “a corporate court” and said a study by the left-leaning Constitutional Accountability Center found that it ruled for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce 69 percent of the time.

Durbin also cited Gorsuch’s dissent in a case in which a truck driver lost his job after his rig broke down one bitterly cold night. (NPR’s Nina Totenberg reported on the case here.) The driver was instructed to stay with the truck, but he found himself growing numb in the unheated cab and so drove away to find warmth, leaving the trailer behind, and was fired for disobeying orders.

Durbin said it was 14 below that night, adding, “but not as cold as your dissent, Judge Gorsuch.” He added, “Thank goodness that the majority in this case pointed out that common sense and the Oxford dictionary” supported their view that the firing was without merit.

In his own opening statement, Gorsuch spoke of striving for impartiality and the support he has received across the political spectrum.

“In my decade on the bench, I have tried to treat all who come to court fairly and with respect. … My decisions have never reflected a judgment about the people before me — only my best judgment about the law and facts at issue in each particular case,” the nominee said. “For the truth is, a judge who likes every outcome he reaches is probably a pretty bad judge, stretching for the policy results he prefers rather than those the law compels.”

Gorsuch will begin taking questions from the senators on Tuesday morning.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

After less than a year as president of Uber, Jeff Jones is leaving the embattled ride-hailing company, Uber confirms.

“We want to thank Jeff for his six months at the company and wish him all the best,” an Uber spokesperson says in a statement.

Jones, previously Target’s chief marketing officer, was brought on by CEO Travis Kalanick last fall to boost Uber’s reputation.

Though Uber has long held its reputation as an aggressive startup, the company has been battling recent controversies, ranging from sexual harassment allegations to Kalanick’s abrasive behavior.

After a video surfaced earlier this year, showing Kalanick arguing with an Uber driver, the CEO admitted he needed leadership help, and announced his search for a new chief operating officer.

While that hunt appeared to threaten Jones’ role as second in command to Kalanick, in a statement to Recode, Jones simply says his leadership approach is “inconsistent” with what he saw happening at Uber.

Meanwhile, Uber CEO Travis Kalanick issued a note to staff: “After we announced our intention to hire a COO, Jeff came to the tough decision that he doesn’t see his future at Uber.”

Recodefirst reported Jones’ departure on Sunday, initially citing sources that claimed Jones’ departure was “directly related” to the company’s amassing controversies.

A number of recent scandals plague Uber, including:

• This month, The New York Times exposed Uber’s secret “Greyball” program, established in 2014 to evade authorities worldwide in cities where the service has been banned. Uber later announced it will prohibit the use of the program
• Last month, former Uber employee Susan Fowler Rigetti published a blog post describing systemic sexism and sexual harassment in the workplace. The viral post prompted Uber to launch an independent investigation, led by former U.S. Attorney Gen. Eric Holder
• Earlier this year, a social media campaign encouraged consumers to #DeleteUber after CEO Travis Kalanick joined President Trump’s economic advisory council — he’s since quit
• People accused Uber of trying to profit from Trump’s immigration order and “breaking strike” by lifting surcharge pricing for airport protesters in New York

Jones joins a list of recent top executives to leave the company. Engineering executive Amit Singhal was asked to resign after failing to disclose a sexual harassment claim from his previous job at Google. This month, Uber’s vice president of product and growth Ed Baker stepped down, in addition to security researcher Charlie Miller’s departure.

Last month, Uber employees spoke with CNNTech about the company’s “grueling” work pace and work-life balance — or lack thereof.

“If you’re going to leave, people do so within the first year because the pace isn’t what they expected or what they’re used to,” said Neal Narayani, Uber’s head of people analytics.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

At this weekend’s gathering of the Group of 20, the world’s 20 largest economies, the group took a step back from its typically overt pro-free trade agenda, in the wake of pushback from the United States.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen represented the U.S. in two days of meetings with their counterparts from the world’s 20 largest economies in Baden-Baden, Germany.

“We are working to strengthen the contribution of trade to our economies,” said the statement concluding this year’s meeting. That wording stops short of rejecting protectionism, as the group has done in the past.

In this first G20 summit of the Trump era, there was trepidation among other members, following Trump’s declaration of an “America First” agenda, and his criticism of the trade policies of China, Mexico, and others. As Steve Beckner reports for NPR’s Newscast:

“At past meetings, joint affirmations of free trade have been virtually automatic. Last year, policymakers of the world’s biggest trading nations pledged to ‘reject protectionism.’ But to the consternation of the host Germans and others, such language is conspicuously absent from the G20’s latest statement.”

Germany dropped the no-protectionism pledge early on in the process, the Associated Press reports, to avoid antagonizing the United States delegation. But in the end, the group failed to find a substitute phrase in support of free trade that all could agree on.

In his first international meeting since he was sworn in, Mnuchin said “the historical language was not really relevant.”

“We believe in free trade, we are in one of the largest markets in the world, we are one of the largest trading partners in the world, trade has been good for us, it has been good for other people,” Mnuchin said. “Having said that, we want to re-examine certain agreements.”

The AP reports that Wolfgang Schaeuble, Germany’s finance minister, suggested there had been tension during the two-day meeting. Without mentioning a country by name, he said, “Maybe one or the other important member state needs to get a sense of how international cooperation works.”

The Washington Post reports that Mnuchin quickly became the center of attention at the gathering, with many foreign leaders seeking to meet with him. During those meetings, the Post reports,

“Mnuchin delivered the same message that Trump had made for months, just slightly softer, according to attendees who spoke on the condition of anonymity to reveal internal discussions: The United States would unapologetically work to redraft trade practices in a way that helps American workers. He said trade agreements need to be “free and fair” and balanced. He also said an overhaul of the U.S. tax code was overdue and that the United States would rethink regulations put in place after the Great Recession. …

Two European officials described Mnuchin as friendly but “tough.” They also said the U.S. delegation at the G-20 was routinely checking back with its counterparts in Washington on certain issues, leading some Europeans to wonder with whom they were negotiating, Mnuchin or Trump. But one of the European officials said this was not uncommon for a new administration, which was still formalizing its viewpoint on an array of complicated matters.”

The Group of 20 is comprised of 19 countries plus the European Union. This more casual meeting of finance ministers will be followed by a formal gathering of national leaders in Hamburg, Germany, in July.

You can read the full communiqué from the G20 here, at the German Federal Ministry of Finance.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

U.S. Customs and Border Protection is asking for design proposals and prototypes of President Trump’s proposed wall on the U.S.-Mexico border.

Late Friday, the agency released specifics for the first time on how tough the barrier must be. CBP posted online two different options for contractors: one proposal must be for a solid concrete wall, another is for a wall with “a see-through component/capability” that is “operationally advantageous.”

“The wall design shall be physically imposing in height,” the CBP outlines say. The government says its “nominal concept” is for a 30-foot-high wall, but adds that designs as low as 18 feet “may be acceptable.”

The proposal document asks contractors for 30-foot-long prototypes and mock-ups of 10 feet by 10 feet.

A CBP official told NPR’s John Burnett that contractors will have to make mock-ups of their ideas in San Diego. “It’s a way for the agency to identify designs. We’re looking for industry’s designs, to take a fresh look at the wall. We’ll have industry propose and then we’ll down-select.”

The CBP, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, requires the wall designs to be impossible for humans to climb without a ladder. It wants proposals that will prevent people from tunneling underneath by at least 6 feet underground.

The government outlines the types of things both types of walls have to stand up to: “sledgehammer, car jack, pick axe, chisel, battery operated impact tools, battery operated cutting tools, Oxy/acetylene torch or other similar hand-held tools.”

It has to look good, too. “The north side of wall (i.e. U.S. facing side) shall be aesthetically pleasing in color, anti-climb texture, etc., to be consistent with general surrounding environment,” the CBP says. There’s no mention of the aesthetics on the Mexican side.

More than 400 companies have told the Department of Homeland Security they’re interested in the project, NPR’s Richard Gonzales reported last week. Cost estimates of the wall vary widely: President Trump said it would cost $12 billion; an MIT study said $38 billion.

The deadline for contractors to submit their proposals for the first phase is March 29.

NPR’s John Burnett contributed to this report.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Environmentalists love “cover crops.” These are plants that tolerate cool weather and grow on farm fields after the crops are harvested. They hold the soil in place and are probably the most effective way to keep nutrients infields, rather than polluting nearby streams.

Unfortunately, the average farmer doesn’t love these crops quite so much. The Environmental Working Group, a research and advocacy organization, studied satellite images of the Midwest and found that farmers in Iowa and Illinois had planted cover crops on less than three percent of their corn and soybean fields. Indiana’s farmers did slightly better, with cover crops on about seven percent of cropland.

That’s tiny, compared to what’s needed to dramatically reduce water pollution from farms. Soren Rundquist, one of the authors of the EWG report, tells The Salt that Iowa’s environmental planners want cover crops on at least 60 percent of the state’s corn and soybean acres. Illinois has set a similar goal. The number of acres with cover crops in both states is increasing, Rundquist says, but at current rates these states won’t meet their goals for decades to come.

There is, however, a proven way to get farmers to cover their fields. Pay them a lot of money for it. It’s worked well in one state — Maryland.

In a part of the state known as the Eastern Shore, a heavily agricultural area along the Chesapeake Bay, farmers now plant cover crops on well over 50 percent of all corn fields, says Ken Staver, a scientist at the University of Maryland’s Wye Research and Education Center.

“The whole system is structured to get maximum impact,” says Staver. The state of Maryland pays farmers for a whole range of practices — like cover crops — that cut nitrogen and phosphorus runoff into streams. The more effective the practice in cutting pollution, the more money the farmers get. The biggest payments — up to $90 per acre — go to farmers who plant a cover crop of rye on corn fields early in the fall, and avoid spreading manure as fertilizer on their fields until spring arrives. (Spreading manure in the fall is more convenient for farmers, but it’s also more likely to wash away over the winter.)

In theory, Staver says, farmers shouldn’t need those payments, because a cover crop can pay for itself. It keeps soil healthy and keeps valuable nutrients in the field, so farmers don’t need to spend as much money on fertilizer.

In practice, Staver says, those arguments haven’t changed farmers’ behavior. “We’ve been at this a really long time,” he says. “We tried that, 20 years ago, and it just wasn’t happening.”

Farmers can be reluctant to plant cover crops because it means extra work, especially at crucial times in the fall and spring. Last year, some farmers in Indiana reportedly had trouble killing off their thriving cover crops when it was time to plant corn in those fields.

When Maryland offered farmers about $20 per acre to plant cover crops, some farmers signed up, but not enough of them. It took more generous payments to convince the majority of farmers to get on board.

Staver admits that this may be more feasible for Maryland than for Iowa, because Maryland has a much smaller amount of crop land to protect, compared to its state budget.

But Rundquist, from the EWG, says there’s another way to look at it. Currently, he says, farmers in Iowa get about $10 million each year as incentives to plant cover crops. That’s dwarfed by other federal subsidies that farmers receive; farmers in Iowa got over $1 billion from the federal government in 2015 in the form of subsidies for crop insurance and as compensation for low prices or poor yields.

Rundquist wants the federal government to shift its priorities. “Is [spending more money to promote cover crops] too expensive, considering how much money we spend on agricultural subsidies?” he says.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

The Trump administration’s new budget blueprint aims to quantify the president’s nationalistic agenda in dollars and cents. The plan, due out Thursday morning, calls for significant increases in military and border-security spending, along with corresponding cuts in many other parts of the government.

“This is the America First budget,” said Mick Mulvaney, director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, in a briefing with reporters. “In fact, we wrote it using the president’s own words. We went through his speeches. We went through articles that have been written about his policies … and we turned those policies into numbers.”

Like any White House budget, Trump’s blueprint is more of a political document than an accurate predictor of government spending. Congress controls the purse strings and lawmakers may have very different priorities. As a statement of presidential intention, though, the blueprint is crystal clear.

“There’s no question this is a hard-power budget,” Mulvaney said. “It is not a soft-power budget. This is a hard-power budget. And that was done intentionally. The president very clearly wants to send a message to our allies and our potential adversaries that this is a strong-power administration.”

Trump wants lawmakers to boost military spending in the coming year by 10 percent, or $54 billion. Rather than raise taxes or increase the deficit, the president is calling for equivalent cuts in other areas. Foreign aid would be especially hard hit, with the State Department’s budget cut by about 28 percent.

“The president ran [his campaign] saying he would spend less money overseas and more money back home,” Mulvaney said. “When you go to implement that policy, you go to things like foreign aid, and those get reduced.”

Critics argue the administration’s single-minded focus on hard power is short-sighted, and could ultimately be detrimental to national security. They point to past comments from Defense Secretary James Mattis, a retired Marine general, who once told lawmakers, “If you don’t fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition, ultimately.”

The White House blueprint does not address major safety net programs such as Social Security and Medicare, which the president has promised to protect. But Trump is calling for sharp cuts in discretionary spending, including the Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA’s new administrator, Scott Pruitt, is a longtime critic of what he sees as the agency’s activist agenda. He and the president have both promised to scale back environmental regulation, including efforts to curb carbon pollution and promote alternative energy. Last week, Pruitt reiterated his doubts that carbon emissions are a primary contributor to climate change. That puts him at odds with the overwhelming scientific consensus.

Climate research at NASA could also take a hit under Trump’s budget. The plan would reduce overall spending at NASA by around 1 percent, Mulvaney said, but would increase spending on space exploration, which Trump supports.

In a speech to a joint session of Congress last month, Trump promised to bring renewed hope and opportunity to what he called “our neglected inner cities.” The Department of Housing and Urban Development will not be the vehicle for that effort, though.

“We’ve spent a lot of money on housing and urban development over the last decades without a lot to show for it,” Mulvaney said. He added that Trump prefers to invest in cities’ infrastructure and school choice.

The president’s plan calls for a 6 percent increase in spending by the Department of Homeland Security, including $2.6 billion to begin work on a planned border wall. The White House is also asking Congress to devote $1.5 billion to the wall in the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.

The administration also wants to eliminate funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helps to finance public radio and television stations. CPB received $445 million in the current fiscal year.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Federal records indicate that a key adviser to President Trump held substantial investments in 18 companies when he joined Trump in meetings with their CEOs.

The investments of Christopher Liddell, the president’s director of strategic initiatives, totaled between $3 million and $4 million. Among the companies in Liddell’s portfolio, and whose CEOs were in the meetings: Dell Technologies, Dow Chemical, Johnson & Johnson, JPMorgan Chase, Lockheed Martin and Wal-Mart.

When Trump conferred with the chiefs of Ford, General Motors and Fiat-Chrysler last month, Liddell attended the session. He was invested in all three companies at the time.

Details of Liddell’s investments are contained in documents he filed with the White House ethics officer in preparation for divesting his holdings. He was seeking certificates of divestiture, which allow federal appointees to defer paying capital-gains taxes by reinvesting in a blind trust or similar arrangement.

The watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed a complaint Tuesday with White House Counsel Donald McGahn, raising concerns that Liddell may have violated the federal conflict of interest law, a criminal statute.

The complaint states: “If Mr. Liddell personally participated in meetings with companies in which he held significant amounts of stock, he may have violated these rules.”

The White House responded with this statement: “Mr. Liddell has been working with the Office of the White House Counsel to ensure he is fully compliant with his legal and ethical obligations in connection with his holdings and his duties in the White House.”

Liddell was born in New Zealand and is a U.S. citizen. In the past he has worked as chief financial officer of Ford Motors, International Paper and Microsoft.

It’s not clear whether Liddell now has sold off his investments, but he apparently had not done so before the meetings in question. The meetings were held on Jan. 23, Jan. 24 and Feb. 3. On Feb. 9, the Office of Government Ethics issued four certificates of divestiture for Liddell and his wife. They would be worthless if the assets had already been sold.

The complaint is one of several actions by CREW on White House ethics issues. The group says in a lawsuit that Trump is violating the Constitution’s ban on foreign emoluments (gifts); it has questioned the ethics of presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway after she urged TV viewers to buy Ivanka Trump’s fashion merchandise; and it challenged the lack of transparency of two White House advisory committees.

CREW Director Noah Bookbinder said of the White House, “It seems nobody is concerned about people making decisions based on their personal interests and not the interests of the American people.”

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Let’s block ads! (Why?)

Traditionally, states that rely on the timber industry, like Oregon, haven’t had much to cheer in the last 30 years. Modernization of mills, economic changes and huge declines in logging led to a long downturn in the industry. During last year’s presidential campaign, candidate Donald Trump promised to bring back timber in Oregon.

Some in the industry are hopeful, but others aren’t waiting. They’re moving ahead with innovations they hope are the key to survival.

Tall Timber

There’s a street corner in downtown Portland, Ore. where architect Thomas Robinson can stand today, and envision a dramatically different scene next year.

“What you’ll be seeing is a revolutionary 12 story, mass timber structure,” he says, “Really — a high rise timber building.”

Robinson’s firm Lever Architecture has designed a 148-foot structure that, when completed, will be the tallest timber building in North America.

Now you may be thinking — that’s a 148-foot match waiting to light.

But Robinson and his designers have studied how wood burns for four years. That knowledge helped them design a mass timber structure that meets the same fire standards as concrete and steel buildings. It’s designed to outperform its rivals in withstanding an earthquake. And then there’s the bonus of collaboration in a state, which like many others, is geographically and politically divided.

“It’s been a great way to connect urban Portland to rural Oregon,” says Robinson.

Crossing And Gluing And Building

The D.R. Johnson Lumber Company is about 200 miles south of Portland in the small town of Riddle, Ore. This is where they’ll make the key material for the Portland highrise, Cross Laminated Timber. CLT.

CLT is a pretty simple concept. You lay down a layer of boards length-wise, then a layer on top width-wise, then another layer the first direction. Up to 7 layers, all glued together, in one large panel. The criss-crossing creates a counter-tension that D.R. Johnson Chief Operating Officer John Redfield says makes the CLT panel both strong and flexible.

The panels are then used for easy-to-assemble construction.

“The advantage of CLT is, we’re actually going to build your building right here in Riddle,” Redfield says. “[The material] is pre-designed, pre-engineered. They’ve got holes in them for mechanical and electrical and plumbing. They’ve got window holes. We load this on a truck in inverse order of how it’s going to be laid out on the job site, and we erect the building from the truck [in the right order].”

CLT has been made outside the U.S. for years and used around the world — including for refugee housing in Europe. When D.R. Johnson started making panels for sale three years ago, it was the first to do so in the country.

“We did, I think, all of us feel kind of a surge of excitement about the potential upside to it,” says company co-owner Valerie Johnson.

Innovating … Carefully

In 2013, Johnson went to a wood innovations meeting in Oregon. She says in such a tenuous industry as timber, it’s important to keep looking for ways to grow. At the meeting, she watched a presentation on CLT. The talk was compelling. The product was similar to some of the others her company made. So, Johnson decided to give it a go. Carefully.

D.R. Johnson started in 1951 and like many lumber companies in the state, it was hit by the timber downturn in the 1980s and 90s. The company shut three of its sawmills. Its workforce shrank by more than 350 people. Statewide, from 1980 to 2010, 300 mills closed, putting 30,000 people out of work.

So now, D.R. Johnson is going step by step. First they made a small CLT panel for testing; then they made panels to sell. Johnson says within the next six to 12 months, CLT production at her company should create 20 new jobs.

“I think the CLT market stands a really strong chance of being very successful here,” she says. “I hope I keep very healthy for a long time because I want to see these beautiful tall buildings built with wood.”

Others Innovating

Another company in Oregon is making big plywood panels for buildings.

And there’s more innovation to come.

“I’m comfortable that there are other manufacturers in Oregon that are looking closely at this,” says Geoff Huntington. He’s the Director of Strategic Initiatives for the College of Forestry at Oregon State University.

“I’m sure that you’ll see others following soon,” he says.

The market for wood products is changing.

“It’s a new frontier,” says Huntington. “We’ve got a building industry, both architects and developers, that are looking at wood in a new way and in different ways than they have before.”

Architects like Thomas Robinson, who’s working on the Portland high rise, like the look of wood. The rural-urban connection Robinson talks about also is part of the new allure. Huntington says it’s the same idea as the farm-to-table concept of embracing locally produced ingredients for food. In the case of wood, call it forest to framing.

For all that’s positive, Huntington acknowledges the growing markets for these new products aren’t going to cure all that ails Oregon’s timber industry. Trade issues and decades-long battles over harvesting trees still exist.

Another 80 miles south of D.R. Johnson, the battle toll is evident. Where not even innovation could help.

We’ve Done Everything We Could

On a recent day in Cave Junction, Ore., Jennifer Phillippi stepped around debris on the grounds of Rough & Ready Lumber Company. She co-owns the company with her husband Link — it’s been in her family since 1922. But it shut down last year and now it’s being torn down.

“Since they started dismantling it, I just haven’t come out here,” Phillippi says as she gazes at the rubble of what used to be a sawmill. “It makes me sad.”

Rough & Ready was heavily reliant on timber from federally owned lands. Those lands became practically untouchable to logging in the early 1990s after court decisions to protect the Northern Spotted Owl.

Jennifer Phillippi says her company tried to innovate its way through the downturn.

“Y’know we’re nimble, we’re small and we’ve done everything we could to sort of adjust,” she says.

They built a co-generation power plant. They upgraded equipment and made sawmill improvements. Ultimately, none of it mattered because they didn’t have enough logs to cut.

Eighty-five workers lost their jobs when Rough & Ready closed for good in 2016. The layoffs were another punch to an already dwindling local economy in a town of not quite 1,900 people. More services were cut. There’s one sheriff’s patrol, only during the day. Asked whether that makes him worry about his personal safety, former Rough & Ready employee Lonnie Adams, 60, says no.

“I pack a gun everywhere I go,” Adams says. “I never used to.”

Cave Junction could be any small rural community marred by unemployment and the threat of crime. But longtime residents note, with pride, the citizen-organized group that tries to fill the law enforcement void with nightly car patrols; locals have fought to keep open the library. It’s communities like this where you’ll find hope in the new administration. Lonnie Adams remembers Donald Trump’s campaign promise to help Oregon’s timber industry. Adams thinks it could’ve saved Rough & Ready, where he worked for 35 years.

“I wish they would’ve held off [shutting down the company] a little longer until Trump got in office,” he says. “He probably will bring timber back because he’s a pretty smart man in my eyes. I wanted him for President. But, it’s too late for here.”

Balance Possible But Not Easy

Back up in Riddle, D.R. Johnson forges ahead with its innovative CLT production. Unlike Rough & Ready, D.R. Johnson hasn’t been so reliant on federal forests. But it still feels the pinch.

“We scrape for the logs for this old mill here, every month,” Johnson says. “Our guys have to hustle to find them.”

Johnson and others in the industry talk about increasing timber harvests without over harvesting. Some environmental groups remain wary and continue to block timber sales, mostly on federal lands, with lawsuits. While the battle continues, at least one prominent forest ecologist says it doesn’t have to.

“Could you increase the timber harvest from the federal lands in a way that would be ecologically as well as socially responsible?” asks Jerry Franklin of the University of Washington. “The generic answer to that is absolutely — yes.”

But the specifics, he says, get very complex. And politicized. At least one bill that attempted to hit the sweet spot between harvesting and conservation, remains stalled in Congress.

Meanwhile, the quest for timber innovation continues. Groundbreaking on the nation’s tallest timber high rise building, is expected this summer in Portland.

Let’s block ads! (Why?)