WV Timber - The Value-added Natural Resource

The Cabell County Forestry and Rail project to learn about the timber and railroad industry in West Virginia was extended by one more day. This was because there was not enough time on our primary trip to tour all the important facilities in both industries. This was achieved on September 5 and 6, 2012 when teachers visited Weyerhauser OSB Sutton Plant and Appalachian Timer Services in Sutton, WV.

Both of these plants demonstrate the importance of extracting a natural resource and producing a product that makes the resource more valuable. These jobs add income to our citizens and tax revenue to our state economy. This is in stark contrast to West Virginia's other major natural resource, coal.The coal industry offers few value-added jobs and employment in mining continues to go down as machines perform more mining functions.

The photographs above show how the process of producing oriented strand board at Weyerhauser's Sutton plant is highly automated. From the crane that unloads logs to the conveyor belts that move the newly cut strands, there is very little human interaction.

Most human interaction involves solving problems should any machine in the manufacturing process malfunction. The photo above right shows the control room where each step in the OSB production process is carefully monitored by computers and humans. The other area where humans are heavily involved is in the maintenance of the various production machines. The Weyerhauser Sutton Plant is a highly-automated, capital intensive operation.

The above photo shows workers at Appalachian Timber Services involved in the production of railroad ties. This company produces treated wood products for the mining industry, railroad industry, and  railroad bridge components. This is necessarily a labor intensive process that is only partially automated. 

The above photo shows workers producing components for building railroad bridges. Like Weyerhauser, ATS burns scrap and waste wood for energy to drive the machinery of production. Both companies also use the less valuable parts of  harvested trees as raw material in their production. This maximizes the value of West Virginia timber by using parts of the trees that were once abandoned. This has been a recurring theme on this trip as time and again the timber industry has demonstrated maximum efficiency, while minimizing the environmental impact of their industry. 

This should be emulated by the coal industry and maximize the use of a valuable natural resource by creating value-added products. Burning coal is the poorest use of a valuable source of complex hydrocarbon compounds that could be used in value-added manufacturing processes with a smaller environmental impact.  

The American Persimmon Tree

The American Persimmon tree is native to the eastern United States and produces a yellow-orange tangy fruit, often used in puddings in the midwest. Its taste is said to be a a cross between plums and dates.

The Persimmon Tree is a member of the ebony family of wood and is often used as a substitute for ebony. This is used in making musical instruments. This tree likes a moist to dry soil with a neutral pH and grows in open sunlight or in slight shade. It is a deciduous tree that grows to be only about 25 to 30 feet in height.





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persimmon
http://www.crfg.org/pubs/ff/persimmon.html

Apple Tree

The Apple Tree is one the most widely cultivated fruit trees in the world. This tree is a small deciduous tree that has been cultivated for thousands of years.

The Apple Tree is a member of the rose family and is propagated by grafting. The genome of the Apple Tree was decoded in 2010, and it was found to have over 55,000 genes, the highest of any plant so far. The human genome contains only 30,000 genes.

Apples are used in a great variety of desserts and drinks as well as eaten raw. There are over 7,500 cultivars of the apple. A cultivar is an apple that has specific characteristics that are propagated through grafting to maintain them.

The Apple Tree is unique among all the trees listed in that it plays a role in history unlike any other. The history of the apple runs from Alexander the Great, to Greek mythology, to the Garden of Eden.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_tree

White Oak

The White Oak is a native North American tree found from Minnesota to Quebec, south to Florida and Texas. It is called white oak though its bark is closer to light gray.

This tree grows to around 90 feet and has been known to live as long as 450 years. The White Oak can sometimes hold its dead leaves through the winter until spring. It likes a moist to dry, well-drained soil that is slightly acidic to alkaline. It is used as a shade tree, in suburban areas because it is intolerant of conditions in urban areas.


White Oak wood is used in the liquor and wine industry as well as in ship-building because of its leak proof nature. It is also used in farm implements and in ornamental woodwork in home interiors. The acorns from White Oaks are an important food source for deer, squirrels, pheasants, and turkeys. 




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quercus_alba

American Basswood or American Linden

The American Basswood tree is native to North America and can be found from Manitoba to New Brunswick, and as far south as Florida and Texas. It is also called the American Linden.

.  
The American Basswood is a deciduous tree that prefers moist to dry soil with a high pH, and grows to 130 feet in height. It can live to be over 200 years old. As the photo shows, it is a simple leaf system characterized by the serrated leaf edges.


It is a very soft wood, so it is used in making crates, for food containers, and sometimes for making solid electric guitars.. Its flowers are attractive to honey bees and so they produce a very high quality honey from the nectar. It is also cultivated as a shade tree because of its leaves and long life. 



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_basswood#cite_note-usfs-0
http://ohiodnr.com/trees/bass_amr/tabid/5335/Default.aspx

Black Walnut

The Black Walnut tree is native to the eastern United States but has since spread to include the midwestern states as well and grows mostly in riparian zones.

The Black Walnut is a deciduous tree that grows in both woodlands and fields in moderately moist soil. It can grow to 150 feet in height and has a compound leaf system as shown above.

This tree is grown for several important uses such as:

• Wood for furniture, flooring, and rifle stocks.
• Nuts as food that is high in poly unsaturated fats and protein.
• Hard shells as abrasives in oil well drilling and cosmetics.
• Hull for stains and dyes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_walnut

Sweetgum Tree

The American Sweetgum tree is a deciduous tree that is native to the warmer areas of the eastern United States. It is characterized by its five point star-shaped leaf and spiked seeds.

 
The Sweetgum is found from New Jersey to northern Florida, west to Texas and north to Illinois and Indiana. It is also found in California and prefers bottomlands and coastal clkimate zones.

This tree lives for more than one hundred years and grows to more than130 feet tall. This hardwood tree is used for lumber to make boxes, crates, and railroad ties. It is alos used for firewood, pulpwood, and plywood. 

The resin of the Sweetgum has been used as medicine by Native Americans and was mixed with tobacco and smoked by Mexican emperors. It now has no medicinal use, though it is still used as an ingredient in perfumes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweet_gum_tree

Scarlet Oak

The Scarlet Oak is a deciduous tree that is native to the eastern United States. It is found in every state east of the Mississippi except Florida, Iowa, and Minnesota.

The Scarlet Oak prefers dry, sandy, and acidic soils and can grow to eighty feet in height. It gets its name from the deep red color its leaves turn in autumn. It is used as an ornamental tree because its wood is of an inferior quality not apprpriate for furniture. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scarlet_oak

Catalpa

The Catalpa tree is a deciduous tree native to North America, The Caribbean, and East Asia. It is sometimes called a cigar tree because it produces a long slender fruit that resembles a cigar.

The Catalpa tree prefers full sunlight with moist soil and grows to seventy feet in height. The wood is very soft and the tree is used as shade and bird habitat. It is also grown as food for a caterpillar that is in turn used as bait for sport fishing.





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catalpa

Black Locust

The Black Locust is a tree native to the southeastern United States, but has since spread to every one of the lower 48 contiguous states except Arizona.

The Black Locust is a deciduous tree that prefers dry to moist soils, especially limestone soils. It grows best in areas that have been disturbed like roadsides, woodlands, and developments. It grows to around eighty feet in height and lives to around one hundred years of age.

The wood of the Black Locust is resistant to moisture and rot, making it a valuable wood for flooring, paneling, and watercraft. It is especially valuable when used as fence posts and fence rails.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_locust

Yellow Poplar

Yellow Poplar

The yellow poplar is a hardwood tree native to North America and is found in every state east of the Mississippi except Maine. It is also called the tulip tree because its leaves are shaped like a tulip flower. 

The tree prefers a moderately moist, slightly acidic, well-drained soil and full sunlight. It is among the tallest trees in the forest and can grow to 160 feet. It is used as a shade tree and as lumber to make inexpensive furniture. 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulip_tree

Ginkgo Biloba

The Ginkgo Biloba tree was once distributed throughout the world, but then went extinct everywhere except a small area of China. It was thought to have been preserved there by Chinese monks because all of the trees are genetically similar.

The Ginkgo likes moist, well-drained soil and prefers full sunlight. It grows on the east coast from New York to North Carolina including Kentucky and West Virginia. It is used as a shade tree because:

• It grows to 25 meters in height.
• It tolerates pollution in urban areas very well.
• Six Ginkgo Biloba trees within two kilometers of ground zero survived the nuclear blast that destroyed Hiroshima in 1945.
• The tree has a lifespan of more than one hundred years.

The Ginkgo Biloba tree has been usedf as medicine to enhance memory with some moderate success. An extract of its leaves has been shown to be moderately successful in improving dementia.

An Encore at the C & O Museum - 45 Years Later

The last day of the WV Forestry and Rail project began on a rainy note with water testing on the Greenbrier River at Site no.3, 37.47° N and 80.23 ° W. Of the three test sites on the Greenbrier, it is the furthest downstream. This part of the Greenbrier River has an island and is wider than at the other two sites.

The same tests were conducted as at the other sites with very similar results. As the chart below shows, the water tested to be of fair quality.

                       Water Quality (Q-Value) Calculation

Test	Q-Value	Weight	Weighted Q Value
DO           5.8	3	.32	.96
Temp      24.9	25.4	.19	4.83
TDS       87.9	80.	.13.	10.40
Turbidity  125.2	61	.15	9.15
pH               7.3	95	.21	19.95
	Overall	Quality	45.29

                       Water Quality Scale

91-100	Excellent
71-90	Good
51-70	Medium
26-50	Fair
0-25	Poor

                                                    

The last official event of the trip was a stop at the C & O Museum in Clifton Forge, VA http://www.cohs.org/ This museum was established to preserve the history of the C & O railroad in Virginia, West Virginia, and Kentucky. This railroad was crucial to the Appalachian region for transportation, employment, and communication. The museum documents the people, facilities, and machines that fulfilled those roles.

The pictures above show one of the last steam locomotives used by the railroad. It has been maintained with the idea of running excursions from the east coast to the Greenbrier Resort, and is named the Greenbrier. The resort was once owned by the C & O Railroad. This locomotive weighs 462,000 pounds and could hold 26,000 gallons of water. As it travelled and depleted its water supply, firetrucks from local communities would refill it because water towers were no longer part of the railroad infrastructure. 

  

Until 1967 trains included dining cars like the Gatsby Tavern, shown in the photos above, that offered passengers food without interrupting their journeys. This dining car is still fully functional and is used for special events like rehearsal dinners, birthdays, and other special occasions. We had lunch served in the car during our visit to the museum. It was a special encore visit for me since I had eaten in the dining car while it was still in regular service on the George Washington in 1967. This happened when I was sixteen years old and travelling to Washington DC with my high school band to march in the Cherry Blossom Festival. 

  

Our visit to the C & O Museum continued with a visit to the Exhibit Hall that contained memorabilia from the various communities that the railroad served and the services that it offered. This included the kitten icon used by the railroad to advertise its Pullman Car service and the motto, “Sleep like a kitten”. This icon was painted on all its cars and was familiar to everyone who had waited at a railroad crossing for the train to pass. Our visit ended with a fun ride on the museum’s model railroad that people could sit on and travel around the museum grounds.    

                                                                           







            

 

The Durban Rocket

The fifth day of the WV forestry and rail project began with a trip to Gaudineer Forest near Snowshoe Resort http://www.wvencyclopedia.org/articles/2092 . This was a small patch of virgin forest that was not logged earlier due to a surveyor’s mistake. This was a deciduous forest with some red spruce, unlike Cathedral State Park which is a hemlock forest with some birch trees.

There is a very significant difference in the undergrowth in the two forests. Cathedral State Park http://www.cathedralstatepark.com/ has only a few plant species present, primarily ferns and rhododendrons. As the photo above shows, Gaudineer Forest has a much more diverse undergrowth with ferns, grasses, vines, and shrubs. As with any old growth forest, there are numerous species of fungi present recycling nutrients. The pH of the soil in each was around 4.5, but Gaudineer Forest was far wetter. This is why it is the home of the Cheat Mountain salamander, found only in this small forest and nowhere else. It also allows slime molds to inhabit the area, unlike Cathedral. 
http://www.wvdnr.gov/wildlife/magazine/Archive/05Summer/wildlife_diversity_salamander.shtm

The afternoon began with water quality testing at site number one on the Greenbrier River. The water was tested again for dissolved oxygen, total dissolved solids, temperature, pH, and turbidity using the water quality index developed by the National Sanitation Foundation. https://www.dropbox.com/sh/m4x5mwyriag1ibf/KHS_eBFvOb/WaterQuality.pdf. The results listed below show the water to be in the fair range.  

                Water Quality (Q-Value) Calculations

Test	Q-Value	Weight	Weighted Q Value
DO               7.0	6.67	.32	22.08
Temp           25.6		.19	4.90
TDS             28.9	85	.13	11.05
Turbidity      44.2	46	.15	6.90
pH                7.5	95	.21	19.95
	Overall	Quality	44.8

                Water Quality Scale

91-100	Excellent
71-90	Good
51-70	Medium
26-50	Fair
0-25	Poor

The afternoon was spent on the Durban Greenbrier Valley Railroad http://mountainrailwv.com/choose-a-train/durbin-rocket riding the Durban Rocket. The Durban Rocket is pulled by a Climax locomotive shown above left http://gearedsteam.com/climax/climax.htm  that makes a daily run of 5.5 miles along the Greenbrier River and back again. The Climax locomotive is similar to the Shay locomotive in that it is geared and was also used to transport logs. This Climax locomotive is one of only three still in operation anywhere in the world.