Along the fence line between two houses in Southeast Portland, an arborist cuts through the trunk of a cherry tree with a chainsaw. He's clearly not in a forest. But he is, arguably, logging.
Urban lumber advocate David Barmon is watching. He’s waiting for a crane to lift sections of the tree trunk out of the yard and into his trailer so he can mill them into tabletops.
The tree has grown into the slats of the homeowner’s fence. It’s covered in ivy and starting to die. Barmon said people remove a lot of trees from the city for all kinds of reasons: They get diseases, they die, they blow down or grow so big they become a hazard to nearby property.
Logging trees for lumber happens all the time in Northwest forests. But the trees we cut down in cities are usually chopped up for firewood or mulch. Barmon wants to change that.
"It's sad to see a big tree that's been bucked up for firewood," he said. "There's a lot of great material out there in the base of bigger trees. That wood can be milled and turned into dimensional lumber or slabs and used for furniture or buildings."
At first he took the challenge upon himself – one tree at a time. Then he teamed up with State Rep. Julie Parrish, R-West Linn, to develop a more organized system that would plan ahead and manage urban trees for lumber production. While it's fun to forage the city for lumber, he said, it’s expensive and inefficient. He still works another job to pay the bills.
"You know, I’m racing around town and looking at this tree and that tree and homeowners don't know what anything is,” he said.
Parrish put together a bill that would put around $400,000 into a pilot project in Clackamas County to test out the concept of growing trees specifically for lumber in unused urban spaces.
She sees potential for jobs and revenue, and she envisions a long line of oak trees running through her district in the grassy median of Interstate 205. They’d be gradually harvested and replanted to make wine barrels for local vineyards.
“Honestly, I get some raised eyebrows from my own caucus," she said. "We believe we can geocode trees when they go in the ground and then groom them specifically to come out later in the future and pick a few species where we can aggregate some scale."
Under her plan, the pilot project would explore the idea of an urban lumber cooperative, where public and private landowners could plant trees for eventual harvest. The trees would be managed with the goal of sharing the revenue from selling the lumber.
Governments already using tax dollars to mow and weed medians, rights of way and parking strips, Parrish said, and with this system those areas might actually deliver a revenue stream long term.
Clackamas County forest manager Rick Gruen said he agreed to help test the concept, even though when he first heard about it he thought it sounded "kind of crazy." He's since learned that there is demand for hardwood lumber, and he sees potential locations for growing it. He estimates the program could eventually deliver up to $10 million a year in revenue for local landowners.
“The more we talked about it, the more it seemed to make sense because we know that trees come down, and once a tree does need to come down, what do you do with it?” he said.
Environmental groups haven’t opposed the idea. They say using urban trees for lumber could be OK – as long as it’s done responsibly. The biggest hurdle the idea has faced so far is convincing cities to allow the program, which could require exceptions to local tree-cutting ordinances.
Barmon said he sees the potential for environmental benefits in growing more trees for urban lumber: It could sequester more carbon, shorten the distance wood travels to its end users, and even take pressure off of natural forests.
"A city is a complete and total reworking of a place that once was a natural area," he said. "There’s no way of getting around that. Why not grow lumber in cities? It’s already been damaged."
Parrish's bill passed in the Oregon House and Senate just before the close of the legislative session. State Sen. Ann Rivers is working on a bill with a similar concept for Washington.
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Courtesy of David Barmon
/Arborists remove a cherry tree from a fence line in Southeast Portland.
Courtesy of David Barmon
/A cherry tree removed from a house in Southeast Portland is on its way to be milled into tabletops.
Courtesy of David Barmon
/A tree trunk is milled into slabs at an urban log yard south of Wilsonville.
Cassandra Profita
/The largest tree trunk David Barmon has at his urban log yard is nearly 8 feet in diameter.
