Memorandum

City of Lawrence

Parks & Recreation Department

TO:	Diane Stoddard, Interim City Manager
CC:	Casey Toomay, Assistant City Manager Ernie Shaw, Interim Director, Parks & Recreation Mark Hecker, Assistant Director, Parks & Recreation
FROM:	Crystal Miles, Horticulture & Forestry Manager, Parks and Recreation
DATE:	February 11, 2016
RE:	Forestry Saw log summary

Background

The city sawlogs removed from parks, right of way and other public grounds are considered urban green waste, not a commodity.  This is primarily due to questionable structural quality and inconsistent volume. The environmental benefit in recycling sawlogs is to reduce the waste stream base and practice sustainability.

The monetary benefit of recycling the city sawlogs is to avoid paying for disposal fees or labor and equipment costs of tub grinding.  Logs are not a commodity and no local market exists.

Notes:

97% of all milled lumber in Kansas comes from rural forests and consists of high end lumber such as walnut.     There are no commercial companies or existing markets set up to handle urban city logs.     Most sawmills won’t take neighborhood trees because they may have metal, such as nails and other structural imperfections.         

A larger sawmill in Kansas City Mo, Urban Lumber does allow free drop off, but does not pay for logs http://urbanlumberco.com/contact/. Tim O’Neil owner 816-888-7947. An example is the City of Kansas City Mo., using a $25,000 grant to pay city crews to remove and transport logs to Urban Lumber and use $10,000 for market analysis and promotional development.  The logs are free to the lumber company because they are disposing of green waste.     http://www.kansascity.com/news/government-politics/article58545683.html

Staff Recommendation 

Continue with recycling the city green waste and trade out saw logs with local artisan sawmills, in exchange for useful milled lumber for Parks and Recreation projects.