Wood ID Lab Moves To Oregon State
Thanks to a five-year, $4 million federal grant from the Forest Service International Programs Office, the Wood Identification and Screening Center (WISC) is moving to Oregon State University, where it will join the College of Forestry. The WISC was established three years ago to combat the illegal timber trade by using wood samples and their unique chemical signatures to identify the origin and species of wood in lumber, furniture and even musical instruments. According to WISC Director Beth Lebow, illegal logging is the third most profitable transnational crime and costs the U.S. timber industry up to $1 billion annually. According to the World Economic Forum, half of all tropical deforestation is illegal.
Companies in the U.S. are banned under the federal Lacey Act from buying or selling illegally sourced timber products, and the WISC can help companies comply with the act and validate their supply chains in the future. When a wood product is imported, the importer has to submit a Lacey Act declaration that states the genus and species, as well as the origin of the wood. The WISC also works with other government agencies including Homeland Security, Customs and Border Protection and the USDA Animal Plant Health Inspection System.
The WISC lab uses specialized mass spectrometry to analyze the chemical signatures in toothpick-sized wood samples no larger than a toothpick. Cross-referencing the signature with others in its database, WISC can determine a product’s genus and species within seconds. To date, WISC has collected 16,000 chemical signatures from 1,100 wood species.
Latest News
Carbotech Acquires Sawquip
Carbotech Group has acquired Sawquip, a manufacturing company specializing in the design and manufacture of sawmill equipment for the primary and secondary breakdown of logs into lumber. This acquisition allows Carbotech Group to add on a new field of expertise, providing customers with innovative new solutions for lumber production. Sawquip’s innovative products include log turners and optimized log infeeds, chipping canters, twin and quad circular saw modules, as well as optimized gangs for controlled shape sawing, among others.
Oregon Truckers File Suit Against State
Rob Freres, president of Oregon-based Freres Engineered Wood, a manufacturer of lumber, veneer, plywood and mass timber, has thrown in his support for a lawsuit filed by the Oregon Trucking Assn. and three Oregon-based trucking companies against the state of Oregon for overcharging truckers under the weight-mile tax.
Hasslacher Enters North America
Austria-based Hasslacher group is acquiring a stake in Element5, a mass timber producer specializing in the design, manufacture and assembly of modern engineered timber buildings. Based near Toronto, Can., Element5 employs more than 100 and produces cross-laminated timber and glued laminated timber for the North American market.
Hampton Lumber Purchases Rebuilt
Atlas Holdings has entered into an agreement to sell RedBuilt, LLC to Hampton Lumber Mills, Inc. Atlas formed RedBuilt with the acquisition of the commercial division of Trus Joist from Weyerhaeuser Co. in 2009. Over the next 14 years, the company became an industry leader in the engineering, design and manufacturing of proprietary wood-based structural solutions serving the low-rise commercial construction market. The transaction is anticipated to close in the first quarter of 2024.
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