July 9-11 NARA researchers visited several sites in the greater Portland area to learn more about resources and relationships that will shape our understanding of biomass issues. This trip included visits with wood recyclers, biofuel processors, environmental organizations and a log yard.
Teevin Brothers Log Yard was our first stop in Washington outside of Longview. At this facility, logs are collected from trucks, sorted, stored and shipped to various markets.
Greenway Recycling is a Material Recovery Facility that sorts- among many types of waste- wood and moves it along to be recycled further. There is a significant amount of woody material that is already in the waste stream in a city like Portland, operations such as this one play an important roll in recovering many materials for another use.
SeQuential Pacific Biodiesel is located in Salem, OR. This site uses feedstock such as used cooking oil to make about 5 million gallons of biodiesel product a year. This piece of the energy economy is important to understand, and this group has worked through important considerations that are similar to those ahead for a wood based biofuel.
The Gifford Pinchot Task Force is an environmental non-profit organization that is one of many stakeholders in the region we are researching. Bob Dingethal met with us to introduce some of the key ideas the task force works towards in the region and the NARA team shared an overview of the project so far as well as some of our initial work in the region.
This was a productive trip on many levels, setting the foundation for further work and research in the southwest Washington and northwest Oregon area. Part of this effort will support the NARA work in the upcoming year, including the generation of a profile and bioregional atlas focusing on woody biomass and the associated assets as well as capitals that are found in the area.
