Editor's Column

Guest Columns

Notes From All Over

By: Jim Peterson

The venerable U.S. Forest Service Forest Products Laboratory on University Avenue in Madison, Wisconsin, as it looked following its completion in 1910. Wisconsin taxpayers build the lab next door to the University of Wisconsin after winning a spirited competition involving the universities of Minnesota and Michigan.

In this issue we write about the twin towers of human progress: knowledge and inspiration. Both flourish in abundance at the United States
Forest Service Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin. We doubt many Americans have ever heard of the lab, yet so ubiquitous is its contribution to the way we live and work that it rivals that of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. All of the technologically advanced structural and panel products used in homec onstruction today began as basic research by lab scientists; so too did the impressive array of paper-based packaging materials we use daily.

But for all of its unheralded contributions to the nation's standard of living, the Madison lab's greatest strength has always rested on its ability
to identify practical and often quite timely applications for seemingly unrelated discoveries in chemistry, physics, botany, forestry, pathology,
biology and engineering. It is no accident. Long before the federal government's fledgling "timber physics" program was consolidated in Madison in 1910, there was a strong laboratory emphasis on bridging the gap between basic research and its practical application. Credit Bernard Fernow, a fervent conservationist, and his betterknown colleague, Gifford Pinchot, the first Chief of the Forest Service and a luminary whose vision and gift for persuasion is still influencing the course of forestry in America.

But it was Prussian-trained Fernow, the first professional forester to immigrate to America and the first director of the Division of Forestry, precursor to the Forest Service, who coined the phrase "timber physics" to describe the government's early work in wood conservation. He used the phrase as early as 1887 to underscore his belief that foresters needed to understand the physical, mechanical and chemical properties of wood "to know what are the qualities for which a special timber is prized and under what conditions it can be expected to produce those qualities." 

Fernow and Pinchot were practical men who understood that conservation's theoretical goals, which both championed, would remain a distant dream until early industrialists could be convinced that greater economy in the use of wood, what Pinchot called "conservation lumbering," could be profitable. Given that the nation's wood supply then seemed inexhaustible the task proved to be impossible until a declining supply in cheap white oak crossties caught the attention of price conscious railroad barons who were then buying more than 110 million of them annually.Soaring demand drove tie prices up more than 200 percent between 1887 and 1900. Small wonder then that the railroads, by then transcontinental and still expanding rapidly, finally embraced wood preservatives that Fernow had earlier said would double the service life of a tie.

Despite the high praise of engineers and architects of the day, the timber physics program was abruptly and inexplicable dropped from the Division of Forestry in 1896. Lacking Pinchot's missionary zeal, Fernow had failed to make the case for the practical value of his largely scientific endeavor. He moved on to Cornell University, where he became dean of its forestry school. It remained for Pinchot, who took over the Division in 1898, to reshape the program largely by the sheer force of his own considerable will.

His timing was perfect. Demand for applied science was growing exponentially, driven largely by soaring prices for a diminishing wood supply. By 1906, there were 60 wood treating plants in the U.S. In 1900 there had been only 15. Also by 1906, there were six timber-testing laboratories scattered across the country, from Washington, D.C. to New Haven, mConnecticut, from Lafayette, Indiana to Eugene, Oregon. The renamed Bureau of Forestry described their role, and Pinchot's vision, in Circular No. 28, Practical Assistance to Users of Forest Products, published in 1904:

"In order to promote the more economical land effective use of our forest resources, the Bureau of Forestry offers practical assistance to users of wood in the study of problems relating to the selection, testing, handling, seasoning and preservative treatment of construction and other timbers, or relating to wood products."

The popularity of the labs soared. By 1906, Pinchot had made his case, not just for economy in the use of timber "to get the most out of it," but also for conservation of the nation's standing timber supply by eliminating both waste in manufacturing and plunder in logging, what Pinchot called "lumbering." But by 1906 the timber-testing program had also become a major headache for the Bureau. It was growing too fast to make control or efficient operation possible. Worse, the interdisciplinary approach that was needed to unlock wood's complex chemical and structural codes-codes that both enhance and complicate its usefulness-was impossible to foster in such a far-flung enterprise. Consolidation under one roof was the only answer. On March 5, 1909, following spirited bidding from several universities, Secretary of Agriculture James Wilson, announced that a new laboratory would be built on the University of Wisconsin campus at Madison. It was a fortuitous moment in the history of forest conservation and wood utilization research.

Most of the early research at the Forest Products Laboratory was in wood preservation. The lab’s principle customers were railroad barons who, by the late 1880s, were buying more than 110 million crossties annually. Interest in wood preservation techniques was aided by a shortage of white oak timber, which caused tie prices to increase by more than 200 percent between 1887 and 1900. Between 1850 and 1910 U.S. track mileage grew from less than 10,000 to more than 350,000 miles. Each mile required 2,500 crossties.

By 1910 scientists knew that when wood was dried its strength increased dramatically. But what could you do with such a discovery? No one knew until wood chemists and physicists, working side by side, decoded the woodmoisture relationship. The resulting drying schedules-charts that told manufacturers how long to dry certain wood species and at what temperature-greatly increased the utilization of wood species that had been thought to be inferior or too weak for structural use. Practical conservation: Pinchot's trademark.

It was the same with the semichemical pulping process, another early triumph for Madison scientists. Semichemical pulping increased pulp yields, allowing papermakers to use different wood species. Now foresters could turn their attention to the management of multiple species. The quality of forestry-and forests-improved dramatically, all thanks to the lab's new interdisciplinary approach.

Between 1910 and 1940 the lab's 60- some scientists strung together a series of quite remarkable advances in wood preservation, strength testing, lumber grading, gluing, pulping, drying, fireproofing and lamination. Though it was a long way from Madison to the front lines, their strategic role on World War II beaches and battlefields was nearly incalculable, particularly the development of lightweight laminated "sandwich" products that could be quickly repaired. General Eisenhower would later say that the battle for control of Omaha Beach might have been lost had it not been for plywoodconstructed Higgins supply boats: victory built on the lab's seemingly inconsequential discovery that wood easily formed strong bonds with a wide array of organic chemicals.

But it was in the years after the war that plywood came into its own as the homebuilding material of choice for a fast growing nation. The manufactured housing industry was born - using a low-cost prefabricated housing design the lab had developed before war broke out that relied on easily assembled plywood panels. An entire family of panel products followed: hardboard, particleboard, flakeboard and insulation board all relied on processing technologies pioneered by lab scientists.

The lab's contribution to the way logs are sawn has also been incalculable. By the 1920s it was clear a tremendous amount of wood was being wasted by unsophisticated sawing systems that relied largely on human eyes. Wood lost was money lost, so with the lab's now formidable research capability in tow, mills readily invested in a series of now seemingly rudimentary advancements that greatly increased the amount of lumber that could be sawn from each log: rudimentary because today labdeveloped software programs run computers and optical scanners thathave replaced human eyes, making it possible to recover lumber from logs so small they were unusable a decade ago.

But now the lab has turned its attention to the most vexing problem our society has faced since conservation first took root in forestry and wood utilization more than a hundred years ago: what to do with the explosion of small diameter trees that have crowded their way into our national forests over the last half-century, choking the life out of treasured landscapes, both east and west. And what also to do with millions of tons of woody biomass, both green and dead, that, along with millions of dead and dying trees, are fueling the most destructive forest fires scientists have ever witnessed in the West?

“We have an obligation to wade into the forestry debate, providing a sound decision making basis for policy makers.” Dr. Chris Risbrudt, Director, Forest Products Laboratory

In hopes of finding the answers to these questions, or at least the beginnings of answers, we traveled to Madison in July to talk with scientists who are trying to find uses for this fiber. We are pleased to report that we found reason for hope, though it was tempered by a straightforward acknowledgement that until viable markets are identified and appropriate technologies developed, forest restoration, which enjoys remarkably wide public support, will remain a distant dream.

It took us an entire day, walking from one office to the next, to see first hand the enormity of the lab's small-diameter wood utilization research program. It took another three days to garner the earliest beginnings of understanding. And since returning home we've spent another month reviewing and digesting reports.

For a glimpse at the future, be sure to log on to the Madison website: www.fpl.fs.fed.us. But read this special report first. You'll discover, as we did, that lab scientists and engineers have already unearthed some exciting opportunities for small wood and
biomass entrepreneurs, opportunities that a Forest Service in desperate search of its once widely admired "can do" attitude should embrace immediately.

The credibility of federally funded forestry research has suffered in recent years, in large part because it has tended to create more problems than it has solved. No better example of this downfall exists than the economic and environmental debacle created by the now questioned decision to list the northern spotted owl as a threatened species. Although the lab had nothing to do with the still to be implemented

Northwest Forest Plan, the resulting melee unjustly tarnished its reputation too. But new director, Dr. Chris Risbrudt, appears to have successfully steered Madison away from the fallout.

Dr. Risbrudt is plainspoken by any standard, but most definitely by today's Forest Service standard. And like Pinchot before him he understands that it is not possible for scientists to serve society's interests while ignoring public needs, values and beliefs.

"The idea that scientists are somehow immune to these value-laden debates-and therefore should not defend against the misrepresentation of scientific facts-is bogus," he declared in answer to our question about the role scientists should play in helping resolve the host of contentious forestry issues facing society.

"Yes, we need to be sure our reports are as free of bias as is humanly possible," he explained. "But we have an obligation to society to wade into the forestry debate, providing a sound decision making basis for policymakers. In the years leading to the spotted owl decision we abdicated this role, leaving our on-the-ground Forest Service brethren to fight through a thicket of unanswered questions and ecological concerns, both real and imagined. It won't happen in Madison on my watch."

By all counts, it hasn't happened either. Indeed, high praise is universal among the small businesses and even smaller entrepreneurial ventures that have sought help in Madison. And clearly, no business in its infancy could afford to buy any of the lab's impressive array of free-for-the-asking services: scientific literature searches, engineering expertise, market research, business planning assistance and onsite consultation. And yet it is small businesses, often undercapitalized- not large well-funded companies-that have enthusiastically embraced the small wood bonanza science-based forest restoration will yield if and when the Bush Administration's Healthy Forests Initiative is implemented. In the interim, most of these emerging businesses are simply treading water, waiting for the day when meaningful quantities of federal fiber can finally be purchased.

The list of those we need to thank for their help with this story is much too long to be cited here. But we would be remiss if we did not publicly thank Jean Livingston, communications specialist for the lab's technology marketing unit. Without her help this project would never have gotten off the ground.