Arizona Forest
Restoration Products Inc.
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Arizona Forest Restoration Products Inc. |
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New Mexico Wood Supply
Attempts have already been made by OSB plants to procure wood out of state, transporting it by rail, but they have generally proved cost-ineffective. For example, the then new J.M. Huber OSB plant in Broken Bow in eastern Oklahoma attempted in the early 2000’s to import ponderosa pine from the Flagstaff area, shipping it by rail with Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway (BNSF), but the 1,157 miles distance proved too long for economic viability.
However, there are only 346 miles from Arizona Forest Restoration Products’s projected plant site in Winslow, AZ to Santa Fe, NM, and the Santa Fe and Carson National Forests, and there is only 145 miles to Gallup, NM and the Cibola National Forest. Arizona Forest Restoration Products is looking at diversifying its raw material sourcing between Arizona and New Mexico in order to spread its local ecological impact, and secure redundancy and competitiveness in its supply chain.
From a ponderosa pine perspective, New Mexico is remarkably similar to Arizona.
Per the Resource Bulletin RMRS-RB-3, “New Mexico’s Forest Resources, 2000”, published in December 2003 by the Rocky Mountain Research Station of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, the total land area of New Mexico is almost 78 million acres. Roughly 21% or 16.7 million acres is forest land, including 10 % or 1.7 million acres in reserved status (protected from being utilized for wood products), resulting in 15 million non-reserved acres.
Here too, the pinyon-juniper woodland is by far the most abundant forest type in the State, covering over 8.8 million acres, or 53% of the forest land. Another 1.0 million acres, over 6%, is classified as pure juniper, resulting in the combination pinyon-juniper and juniper types composing almost 60% of New Mexico’s forest land. Distribution of the timber land is between ponderosa pine, 17% of the forest land, Douglas-fir, 6%; deciduous oak, 5%; white fir, 3%; aspen, and evergreen oak, about 2% each. Other miscellaneous types combined, including nonstocked woodland, make up the remaining 5% of the forest land.
With 2.8 million acres, or about 17% of New Mexico’s forest land, almost 2.5 million acres of which are classified as non-reserved - hence open to being utilized for wood products, the New Mexico ponderosa pine forest is not only the second most abundant forest type in New Mexico (New Mexico’s Forest Resources, 2000, p. 8), but it is also the second largest continuous ponderosa pine forest in the world after the Arizona forest.
The total biomass in live trees in New Mexico forests is estimated to be over 296 million tons, and the total volume of wood in live trees is estimated to be almost 16 billion cubic feet. The net volume of growing stock on nonreserved New Mexico timberland (species traditionally harvested for lumber) is over 6.2 billion cubic feet annually, 1 billion cubic feet of which is ponderosa pine.
The ponderosa pine makes up 29% of the total biomass or almost 86 million tons, and 25% of the total volume or 4 billion cubic feet. It is the third largest species in terms of number of live trees on forest land in New Mexico, and it accounts alone for 29% of the net annual growth of the New Mexico forest (New Mexico’s Forest Resources, 2000).
With 4 billion cubic feet of wood in almost 750 million live trees over 2.8 million acres, and with 29% of the net growth of the New Mexico forest, the ponderosa pine timberland is perfectly able to sustain with renewable natural resource not only one but several OSB plants.
Hypothetically, Arizona Forest Restoration Products’s entire annual wood requirement of 258,000 ccf would cause only approximately 1.3% of the New Mexico ponderosa pine forest to be treated annually for fuel reduction, a definitely sustainable situation.
Much more relevant is the fact that Arizona Forest Restoration Products’s entire annual wood requirement of 258,000 ccf would represent not even half of New Mexico’s ponderosa pine annual growth (887,400 ccf).
Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station Resource Bulletin RMRS-RB-3: New Mexico’s Forest Resources, 2000. Published Dec. 2003.
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