Small-diameter wood products from Colorado Forests.. Firewood, post/pole and wood chip producers listed here. Online membershop forms for producers here.

Small-diameter wood opportunities
A unique forestry marketing program will begin making more inexpensive small-diameter material and biomass available to Colorado businesses and consumers in five Front Range counties beginning in May.

The two-year utilization and marketing project is being implemented through a Working Partnership Grant provided by the U. S. Forest Service. Colorado State Parks and the Colorado State Forest Service are overseeing the two-year effort.

“Colorado currently lacks the forestry business infrastructure needed to transform forest biomass into marketable products such as energy, landscaping materials and firewood,” said Colorado State Parks Division Energy Coordinator Elling Myklebust.

In August 2007, the U.S. Forest Service awarded the $100,000 grant to Colorado State Parks in partnership with the Colorado Biomass Working Group, to collect, process and market small-diameter material and woody biomass from Boulder, Gilpin, Larimer, Jefferson and Clear Creek counties.

Bundled firewood with the CFP brand rolling out at United Wood Products in Longmont.

The program, “Forest Products and Biomass Collection, Utilization and Marketing Project: Implementing a Vertically Integrated Strategy to Increase Biomass Utilization,” aims to develop a collaborative business infrastructure to move biomass products to the marketplace.

“This project will develop the framework needed to support sustainable, landscape-level woody biomass projects by linking the collection, processing and marketing of biomass products," Myklebust said.

Colorado Forest Products will help businesses involved in the program market their products through its ongoing consumer awareness and branding program.

The project area includes land in and around the Arapaho & Roosevelt National Forests and will include processing areas that should be accessible most of the year.

Forest restoration and fuels treatment projects on public and private lands in the project area create a significant amount of woody biomass byproduct, and additional projects planned for the future will produce even more.

Local businesses and individuals will have the opportunity to collect roundwood of various sizes that have already been removed from the forest, sorted and, in some cases, processed. People and businesses involved in the program will also have assistance in getting their product into the marketplace.

Joseph Duda, Forest Management Division supervisor for the Colorado State Forest Service, hopes to create markets and uses for the wood rather than chip or burn the woody biomass on site.

“By creating markets for the wood, we can reduce the cost of fuels reduction projects in Colorado and find productive uses for these wood resources,” Duda said.

The grant funds five sub-projects:

The Larimer County Biomass Collection Project will collect and sort biomass products and distribute them to local markets, including the Colorado State University biomass heating project scheduled for winter of 2007-2008;
The Boulder/Gilpin County Collection Project will collect and sort biomass products and distribute them to local markets, including the Gilpin County biomass heating project scheduled for 2007-2008;
The Jefferson County Biomass Collection Project, in which wildfire mitigation crews will deck biomass and haul it to a sorting site;
The Biomass Processing and Transportation Assistance Fund will assist counties with collection and processing efforts and make value-added products such as posts and poles, animal bedding and firewood; and
The Biomass Marketing Initiative, which will recruit new businesses and conduct a consumer campaign by tapping into the Colorado Forest Products Marketing Program.

The Colorado Biomass Working Group is a collaborative consisting of government agencies, nonprofit organizations and businesses working to develop markets for biomass materials. The Colorado State Parks Energy Management Office, a participant in the working group, promotes and pursues environmental sustainability in Colorado State Parks and within our state’s recreation community.

People interested in obtaining wood from the five sites may contact Craig Jones at 303-443-2088, or by e-mail at craigjo@lamar.colostate.edu.

Businesses wishing to join or learn more about Colorado Forest Products may contact Jeff Thomas at 3030-604-1020 or by e-mail at jthomas@neodial.com.