Calaveras Healthy Impact Product Solutions (CHIPS) – Calaveras County, California
Wood chips become source of town's hope
Published Monday, June 27, 2005
By Francis P. Garland
Lode Bureau Chief
WEST POINT -- It wasn't all that long ago that the timber industry was king in this rugged, remote stretch of Calaveras County.
More than a half-dozen sawmills kept the local economy humming and put dozens of people to work handling lumber or logging trees.
But it's been more than eight years since the last of those mills, across the Mokelumne River in Martell, closed. And the Blue Mountain communities of Rail Road Flat, Wilseyville and West Point haven't recovered.
"A once-thriving economy is a shambles," said Steve Wilensky, supervisor of the county's District 2. "We have all kinds of social indicators that point to a stressed community."
What's more, the community landscape has become crowded -- not with residents, but trees. The mill closures have allowed forest fuels to build to the point where some fear a major wildfire isn't a possibility, but a probability.
"A big fire is heading their way," said Warren Alford, the fire and fuels policy coordinator for the Sierra Nevada Forest Protection Campaign, a 96-member coalition of environmental groups that includes the Sierra Club and The Wilderness Society.
That specter, combined with a desire to kick-start the local economy, has prompted a group of Blue Mountain-area residents to begin work on a public-private partnership that could reduce the wildfire threat, put people to work and provide products for the region and beyond.
The project, known as CHIPS -- Calaveras Healthy Impact Product Solutions -- would turn wood waste and small-diameter trees into landscape mulch, fence posts and other wood products. The material isn't of value to logging companies but poses a major fire threat.
The project slowly is taking shape with the help of county officials, American-Indian representatives, residents and folks from outside the area.
The effort received a boost last week when the U.S. Forest Service awarded CHIPS a $15,000 grant to prepare an economic feasibility study to determine which activities to pursue first -- and which have the potential to be pursued down the line.
The project has several elements, including an apprenticeship component in which local residents will learn clerical, accounting, heavy-equipment operation and truck-driving skills.
Alford believes the resources -- wood products and potential workers -- are available in sufficient quantities to make CHIPS a major success. Just in terms of fence posts, Alford said, California is a major consumer yet has no facilities to manufacture the product.
"West Point has material going unused, and the industry doesn't want to shift to utilize it, and the community is saying they need a way to put people to work," he said. "This is the place where this kind of a thing can happen."
Other potential products include wood stove pellets and perhaps a co-generation plant that one day could power the West Point area.
If all of those things come to fruition, Wilensky said, as many as 40 local residents could find themselves employed. And because the store of wood products doesn't figure to dissipate anytime soon, those jobs should be fairly secure.
The CHIPS group is working with the county's Public Works Department to use its grinder and other equipment to help make the mulch and colored wood chips.
Public Works Director Rob Houghton, while supportive of the idea, said maintenance, insurance and other issues need to be resolved before that equipment is made available. But, he said, the CHIPS apprenticeship program is further along, and that would prove beneficial to the county in the form of free labor and to participants who receive valuable
job training.
Briana Creekmore, who lives in West Point and serves on the Calaveras County Miwok
Tribal Council, said the community needs the CHIPS program to succeed to build a more
viable economic base.
"West Point is kind of a forgotten community up here -- it's off the beaten path," she said.
"All the growth and new jobs that are coming to the county are going to Valley Springs
and up through Arnold -- and the communities of District 2 are just out there fending for
themselves.
"For too long, we've never had any direction. This is extremely important to us."
Contact Lode Bureau Chief Francis P. Garland at (209) 736-9554 or fgarland@recordnet.com