FSC certified company brings new life to old raft logs

A newly FSC certified company in the USA is recycling old raft logs - so called boomsticks - into a host of fine lumber products. The company expects to sell much of its product line to developers and builders involved in the environmentally sensitive US construction industry. Columbia Riverwood received FSC chain of custody certification in April 2008. The company’s FSC recycled products will maximise building material points under the US Green Building Council’s LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program.

The Oregon based company acquired over 1 million board ft of floating boomsticks. Over 50 years ago, boomsticks were selected from some of the highest quality logs in order to tow huge log rafts up and down powerful rivers. For decades the river has been covering all but the tops of these logs, preserving the wood.

Each boomstick is lifted out of the river, loaded onto a log truck and transported to an FSC certified sawmill in Mehama, Oregon. Years of accumulated grit in the outer inch of each log requires the use of a large circular saw blade. Once that outer grit layer is removed, the beauty of old growth timber is reclaimed into flooring, window and door stock, beams, moulding and one-of-a-kind blocks for woodturners.

“Based on diameter and ring count, our boomsticks range in age from 150 to 350 years old and stood over 200 ft tall before being felled 50 to 70 years ago. Some of the ring counts (more that 30 to the inch) simply can’t be found on the market today,” said Erick Haglund, Columbia Riverwood’s President. “It’s a real thrill to generate an old growth product through recycling.”