Eric Herkins sold his mountain home and lived in a tent so he could buy a tree skidder, a machine that can grab and haul logs. The 43-year-old took the bold gamble a few years ago when trees started dying by the thousands as the bark-beetle crisis raced across the San Bernardino Mountains.
Eric Herkins sold his mountain home and lived in a tent so he could buy a tree skidder, a machine that can grab and haul logs.
The 43-year-old took the bold gamble a few years ago when trees started dying by the thousands as the bark-beetle crisis raced across the San Bernardino Mountains.
"We saw a need," he said. "I bought a mill and was doing tree jobs before the full-blown beetle attack."
In the early days of the bark-beetle infestation, officials struggled to get rid of the tens of thousands of dead trees being cut down by an army of chain-saw-wielding workers who swarmed over the mountains.
It had been generations since timber was taken for profit from the San Bernardino National Forest, and there were few local businesses able to do anything with the logs and waste wood.
Instead of putting the wood to good use, officials were left with disposing of it any way they could, using powerful wood chippers, ultra-hot incinerators and simply dumping it in landfills.
Some trees were hauled to a lumber mill past Bakersfield. Some wood chips went to a power plant east of Indio.
But most of the wood was literally going to waste.
In December 2002, a few tons per day of wood waste were going into San Bernardino County landfills. As the crisis accelerated, county landfills were taking in 900 tons per day by August 2003.
Those spearheading the effort to rid the forest of dead trees lamented there was no place for the wood to go.
That has changed.
A cadre of companies and entrepreneurs is now using the timber for wood siding, log houses, table tops, large beams, mulch, energy production and even as stock for chain-saw sculptures.
"We use every stick we can," said Robert Herkins, Eric's brother.
Robert, 40, gave up a job in the electronics industry and has taken about a one-third pay cut to join his brother in their West Coast Timber business. Much of the electronics work was heading overseas, and he had been offered a chance to move to China.
Since he was about to get married, he decided to stay and see if the brown dead trees could generate some green.
"I thought there might be a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow," he said. "For me, it's a severe career change."
With West Coast Timber operating at the former Santa's Village site on Highway 18 between Lake Arrowhead and Running Springs, the brothers estimate they have poured $700,000 to $800,000 into the business.
From two pieces of equipment 18 months ago, they now have two self-loading log haulers, a big-rig sleeper tractor, a Caterpillar front-loader, and other specialized tools.
They spent more than $90,000 for a machine that can turn a 40-foot-long, 27-inch-wide log into split firewood in about 90 seconds. On a good day they produce 35 cords of wood. A cord is a stack 4 feet wide, 4 feet high and 8 feet long.
"Weekends are spent delivering firewood," Robert said.
The Santa's Village parking lot resembles a yard someone might see in Northern California or Oregon. Stacks of logs sit to be sorted. Neat piles of split firewood cover a large area.
A portable mill, which takes the logs and turns them into usable lumber, sits off to the side.
The brothers don't do traditional lumber cuts, such as 2-by-4s, but have found niche uses for almost every part of the trees.
Pointing to a pile of branches, Robert said most would see that as waste. The brothers see it as rails for fences or banisters.
Eric describes himself as a recycling nut, and that includes the first slice off a log, called a flitch.
Flitches are prized by some woodworkers for tabletops or mantels. The brothers make custom beams for homes or wide boards for tables, among other products. Some people use the trees that have been cut down in their own yards for projects.
Processing and selling the wood helps supplement the money the brothers get for cutting trees under contract to the county and the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service.
Directly across Highway 18, youthful entrepreneur Brad Bauder has expanded a tree and forest-service business into a key drop-off point for waste wood.
He also saw the forest crisis as an opportunity, even if a relatively short-lived one.
"When we first saw what was happening, we bought a track-chipper," the 27-year-old Crestline resident said.
A track-chipper is an 83,000-pound, 900-horsepower machine that can creep along on its own, pull a 30-inch-diameter log into its maw and spit a stream of 2-inch chips out to 150 feet.
Unlike the Herkins brothers, the material Bauder grinds mostly goes to produce electricity, especially to the Colmac Energy plant in Mecca, east of Indio, which burns wood to produce electricity.
One contractor who sells the wood chips to landscapers said he has trouble now meeting demand.
Many of the bark-beetle-killed trees have been dead for so long that they're not good for milling into lumber.
Some logs are sent to companies that make wooden pallets, where low-quality wood is just fine.
"We try to salvage everything we can," said Mike Holmes, a regional manager for Alpha Services, an Idaho-based company that also sought to take advantage of the forest crisis.
His company mainly cuts tress under contract, and like the others, selling the wood products is a bonus.
"Hopefully, you make a few bucks off disposal," he said.
To help private businesses use the wood, the county created a 24-acre log deck next to Mountains Community Hospital in Lake Arrowhead.
A log deck is a wide flat area where logs can be sorted, cut or processed. Several operators are now using the area to move logs to markets.
But no one knows how long there will be a reliable supply of timber. Though the bark-beetle population is down, and trees aren't dying the way they were, there is still a tremendous amount of work to be done, officials warn.
Funding for the U.S. Forest Service to do forest-thinning projects is down to $5 million this year from a recent high of $30 million.
Forest Service officials have long worried that once the immediate bark-beetle crisis subsides, the public and politicians won't be as willing to fund the long-term commitment needed to restore the forest to a healthy state.
And that means business people are hesitant to make big investments if the supply of raw material begins to slow.
Said Holmes, "We have to keep at it."
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Source: Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News
