 "Chip
Mill" Position Statement
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Position
The Appalachian Society of American
Foresters (APSAF) believes that local, active, free
markets for a wide range of raw forest products provide
forest landowners with the best opportunity to retain
and manage their forest resource for long-term sustainability.
The right to sell and harvest timber, along with unrestricted
access to competitive timber markets, is necessary
to maintain or improve the health and quality of the
forest resource, and to generate competitive economic
returns necessary to minimize the fragmentation and
conversion of forest land to less environmentally
preferable uses such as commercial or residential
development.
Issue Statement
Due to many economic and market-based
factors, the number of chip mills in the southeastern
United States has increased in recent years. Anti-timber
harvesting organizations characterize this increase
as a "doomsday" threat to the forest resource of the
region, and have been successful in creating a political
and media issue out of it. Primarily relying on emotional
themes, they advance the opinion that chip mills,
because they utilize significant volumes of low-grade
pulpwood, are therefore (1) synonymous with "destructive"
clearcutting, (2) singularly ensure "overcutting"
in any area where they are located, and (3) if not
stopped, will lead to rapid total devastation of the
region's forest resource, sawmill industry, and rural
communities. We do not agree with these opinions.
Background
A chip miss is a stand-alone facility
that converts pulpwood into chips. The wood chips
from a chip mill are transported by truck, rail, or
barge to a paper mill where they are used to make
paper. A typical chip mill consists of platform scales
to weigh the truckloads of pulpwood, a portal (overhead)
crane to unload the trucks, a debarking drum to remove
the bark from the pulpwood, a large roundwood chipper,
and conveyer belts to move the chips into trucks,
rail cars, or barges (if applicable). A modern chip
mill employs 5-10 workers on-site, purchases approximately
40 to 50 truck loads of pulpwood per day, and produces
about 4,000 to 5,000 tons of chips per week. (Note:
An average-sized paper mill uses about 40,000 tons
of chips per week.) Properly located and designed
chip mills produce little off-site impacts. As with
any industrial site, noise and dust abatement techniques
are commonly employed, and storm water runoff is controlled.
Wood chips for paper mills are produced
at many locations besides chip mills. Most paper mills
have a large chipper on-site to convert pulpwood into
chips. Sawmills are one of the largest sources of
chips. Most modern sawmills have chippers that convert
slabs, edgings, end-trim blocks and cull logs into
chips that are sold to a paper mill. A few loggers
use portable in-woods chippers to produce chips directly
at the logging site.
Siting and constructing a "new" chip
mill is generally a sign of free market equilibrium
at work in the forest products industry. Assuming
the chips are being produced for domestic use (approximately
95% currently are), and there has been no major expansion
of production capacity in the regional paper industry,
the chips from the "new" chip mill are often simply
replacing chips (or more likely pulpwood) previously
being purchased in areas where wood prices have become
higher due to increased competition and/or a less
available wood supply. For example, a paper mill located
near a population center sees the available timber
supply near their mill being reduced by development,
and locates a chip mill in an area 100 miles away.
The chips they supply from the new location (where
timber harvesting increases) replaces wood (and reduces
timber harvesting proportionally) in the "higher cost"
area near the paper mill. Thus, regional "net gain"
in timber harvesting from a new chip mill is often
negligible.
With regard to timber harvesting,
chip mills provide a market for forest landowners
to sell pulpwood. Other than firewood, pulpwood is
the lowest value (with the lowest quality standards)
form of wood material. Veneer logs, poles and pilings,
plywood logs, and sawlogs, all bring a much higher
per unit price than pulpwood. For example, many sawmills
will not purchase sawlogs that are smaller than 10
inches in diameter at the small end. Chip mills purchase
pulpwood as small as a 4-inch diameter. Thus, the
upper 10-to-20-foot section of a harvested sawlog
tree, less than 10 inches in diameter, can be sold
to a chip mill. No chip mill owner would knowingly
use sawlogs or other higher value raw material to
produce chips, as this would be the equivalent to
throwing away money.
A chip (pulpwood) market can also
offer a forest landowner the opportunity to harvest
and regenerate a poor-quality timber stand that has
declined from previous periodic "high-grading" (selectively
cutting the best trees and leaving the poor quality
ones). Without this "low-grade" market, landowners
would be quite limited in their ability to improve
the overall quality of their timber resource.
Twenty-five years ago, there were
several hundred "pulpwood yards" located across the
rural South, where paper mills purchased and inventoried
truckloads of pulpwood, loaded it on rail cars, and
shipped it to a paper mill. Today, many of those pulpwood
yards have been replaced by a much smaller number
of higher production chip mills, because chips can
be transported and stored more efficiently, safely,
and at less cost than pulpwood. Again, chip mills
are simply a reflection of market efficiencies at
work in a free market economy.
Conclusion
The Appalachian Society of American Foresters supports:
- Free, competitive markets for all classes of raw
forest products, including chip mills with unrestricted
market access for forest landowners to harvest and
sell their timber to any market that meets their
personal economic objectives.
- Responsible and professional harvesting that complies
with all applicable laws and regulations, protects
the environment including water quality and site
productivity, and follows the principles of sustainable
forestry.
- The gathering and reporting of timely, accurate
forest inventory analysis (FIA) data at the local,
state, and regional level to enable both the public
and private sectors to closely monitor the ratio
of annual growth to annual harvest and natural mortality,
as well as the overall forest health and timber
quality.
- Public and private programs and policies that
encourage private forest land ownership and sustainable
forestry practices, including reforestation.
- Public and private programs and policies that
encourage private forest land ownership and sustainable
forestry practices, including reforestation.
For more information on this position statement,
or to receive a copy of our "Clearcutting" or other
position statements, please contact:
S. L. Spradlin, Jr.
Appalachian Society of American Foresters
Rt. 4, Box 134
Appomattox, VA 24522
804-846-5293
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