Roy L Hales/Cortes Currents - A four acre clearing was carved out of the forest in downtown Mansons Landing to make way for the Rainbow Ridge Affordable Housing Development. A crew was busy piling the last of the logs when Cortes Currents arrived on site, and the ground was covered with branches, wood debris and stumps. Construction on the first building is expected to start in a month, which means a lot of wood is going to have to disappear. 

What is the Cortes Housing Society going to do with it? 

Mark Lombard answered on behalf of the Cortes Housing Society:  “That's a great question.” 

“We have two loads of saw logs going to the Klahoose Sawmill, and there are four loads of saw logs going to the Blue Jay Lake Sawmill. One of those loads is going to be for the use of the Housing Society for construction in the future. Over time, as we need lumber for various projects, we'll be able to pull them out of the inventory of logs that went to the Blue Jay Sawmill. There's also a load of saw logs going to a small mill in Mansons and another load of saw logs going to a small mill in Cortes Bay.”  

“In terms of the firewood logs, any of the logs that were a little bit smaller than the local mills can use or a little bit lower grade, we have two loads of firewood going to Klahoose and then multiple groups of residents who are getting two or three neighbors together are buying the rest of the loads of firewood logs.”

They started delivering logs across the island on Saturday and were expected to finish Monday, March 24.

 Mark Lombard: “ The next step for the project is all the branches and tops. It's a bit of a challenge to decide what to do with them sometimes..” 

“We've decided not to burn for a few reasons. One is the smoke, right in Mansons. Another is, there's a new requirement to have your piles piled for three months before they're burned, and that would put us right into fire season. So what we've decided is we're going to chip up the branches and tops too. That'll help keep the biomass on the site.”

“Once we pull the stumps and level up the site, then we can spread the wood chips out so that it builds topsoil and slows down erosion. So we don't have a lot of exposed soil.” 

“The school is building a wetland this summer at the back of the school yard, and they are going to take about 125 stumps from the housing society projects. On the north end, directly behind the fire hall and where the first community building is going to be built, we are going to pile up those stumps so that they can be moved over to the school wetland project in July. Then the stumps further south on the project are going to be moved to the very south end of the clearing, where there was a little bit of a natural opening.”

“Once the site is levelled out, we're going to start building the first community building, the laundromat and housing society office. We are hoping that in about a month from now we'll be starting construction on that building.” 

“There are lots of small cedar logs that we're not making into firewood logs. So if people are looking for posts for garden fences or any kind of posts, we have lots available. We also have quite a few longer cedar poles that would make a really good barn pole or timber frame outdoor shed that will be for sale.”

“We also have lots of pieces of curved fir and cedar. Some of them are longer, some of them are shorter, but can make some nice curved beams for things. We're also thinking that some of the really curved pieces of cedar, we’ll Alaska mill them and make them into slabs. So if people want any cedar slabs, we're going to have some of those available.”

 Cortes Currents: Any last thoughts?

Mark Lombard: "We are fortunate to have a crew of professionals doing the work and everything has been done carefully and in the most tidy way possible.”


Phase 1 At Rainbow Ridge_ Logs, Branches and Other Wood Debris

Cortes Currents is a news platform that asks what's current in Cortes and the Discovery Islands. Web articles & radio podcasts: Cortes Island, Quadra Island, Discovery Islands, Campbell River: news, lifestyle, local politics, affordable housing, economy, food security, health, ferries, tourism, history,  culture, environmental issues, sustainable forestry, oyster farming, the arts, First Nations, energy, climate change, overshoot

Phase 1 At Rainbow Ridge_ Logs, Branches and Other Wood Debris

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