If UNBC does a good job of this, it may very well be a nice foot in the door to establish an associate or satellite wood products research centre.

This is one of those research consortiums which could eventually be housed in a research park on the hill.

Forintek and Paprican are the preeminent Canadian Associations working in this area.

http://www.paprican.ca/wps/portal/paprican?lang=en

http://www.forintek.ca/public/Eng/EE0-default_eng/EE0-default_eng.html

**The facility will examine ways of using the beetle wood for a broad range of uses.** Im not sure what this sentence means, however it doesnt make a lot of sense. In any event there are only a limited number of ways this fibre can be used, and this will depend on whether the Government of the day, and private enterprise wants to spend the money.

As far as looking at using the timber at the bottom of Ootsa Lake, different Governments and Business's have been looking at this since the 1960's. One company was actually logging the lake in the late 60's and early 70's,. I beleive that some logging is still going on. Unless the Government allows this timber to be cut without paying any stumpage fees, or at least very low stumpage fees, I suspect it will stay where it is. It is highly unlikely that any report from UNBC will resolve this problem.

It will be interesting to see what the result of these studies will be. I suspect it will be something like, we can use the beetle kill trees for;
(1) Lumber
(2) Woodchips
(3) Plywood
(4) Hogfuel for Co-Generation Plants
(5) Wood Pellets
(6) Secondary Industry (Furniture) components

Do we really need a UNBC Research facility to tell us what to do with trees when we have been logging in the Province for 100 years or more. We already know what to do with the fibre, the question is, do we have the Political will and the Private money to do it?

Logging under water. I believe U. Vic. is involved with the research/work that Triton is doing.

Here is some information on the Sawfish for those who may not have seen it yet:

Triton Logging
http://www.tritonlogging.com

Alcan
http://www.alcan.com/web/publishing.nsf/content/Environment+Health+and+Safety+Case+Studies/$File/Underwater+Logging.pdf

Environmental Health Perspectives article:
http://www.ehponline.org/members/2004/112-15/innovations.html

A "hand faller" diver experience in Brazil (Triton is counting on selling its invention world wide):
http://www.bookofjoe.com/2004/09/underwater_logg.html

The interesting thing about research is that if we knew everything we could do and how to do it, then we would not require reseach.....

The other interesting thing about research and R&D is that if nothing was produced by investing money in it, whether private or public, then no one would fund it.

I agree owl, however you will note that the equipment that will be used for this research will cost $2.5 Million dollars and is available on the open market. This should tell you that if the equipment is available around the world and being sold for specific purposes, that a lot of the research has already been done. Dont for a moment think that we are the only place in the world where research on the various uses of wood have been and can be done.

As I mentioned before underwater logging in Ootsa Lake has been going on and off since the late sixties, and the trees are dried out and used for lumber like any other tree. For your information hardwood logs that have sunk in the Great Lakes around Ontario and which have been at the bottom of the Lakes for 100 years are being brought up dried out and cut into high grade lumber. You can gather from this that there is nothing new in logging under water.

A research grant to investigate uses for Beetle Wood and Ootsa Lake trees is more directed at the public to give the impression that the present Government is doing something about the beetle kill, and has little to do with reality. Pat Bell states that there is little likely hood that any new uses for this timber will come as a result of the research, and even if it did it would be 15 years or so before we get any concrete results.