Thursday Morning -- MeadWestvaco Tours
On Thursday morning, we explored the Paper Mill and Nursery of the MeadWestvaco company in Escanaba and then visited the Sampo Sportsman's Club land, a non-industrial, private forest near Gwinn, for a tour and Lunch.
Paper Mill and Nursery Tour
We
started the day at M-Tec where we were introduced to Kel Smythe who prepared us
for our tour of the MeadWestvaco Escanaba paper mill with a short video produced
by MeadWestvaco Paper Group entitled, The History of Papermaking. After
that introduction to the papermaking process we commuted over to the mill and
got to see the process first hand. We broke into four groups and toured the
mill's #4 paper machine, The Spirit of Escanaba. An outline
of the papermaking process is here. MeadWestvaco's pulp mill uses 1,800,000 tons of wood annually.
The MeadWestvaco corporation owns 667,000 acres of and is the largest private landowner of forestland in Michigan.
After touring the mill itself, we loaded back into the bus where Kathy Jacobey, MeadWestvaco's Environmental Manager took us on a drive-through tour of the complex on our way out the the regeneration facilities (nursery.)
Kathy pointed out various points of interest on the complex while describing the measures MeadWestvaco employs to maintain environmental quality in its production process. The mill generates its own steam and electricity, treats its incoming and outgoing water, and has its own landfill on site. The landfill contains residuals from the wastewater treatment plant (75%) and ash from the boilers (20%) and small amounts of mill waste. Their wastewater treatment plant treats 35 million gallons of water a day, covers 120 acres, and performs in the top 5 within the industry. Kathy also described how residual material from the paper making process such as bark and pulping sludge is burned for energy and chemical recovery. 2/3 of what they burn for energy is residual materials.
The mill employs about 1300 people total. They have their own maintenance department, fire department, hazmat team, and medical first response team.
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At
the nursery, we were greeted by Jon Johnson, Forest Technical Manager for
Michigan. Jon introduced teachers to forest certification and how the nursery
and GIS lab were helping MeadWestvaco meet its sustainability requirements. He
then split us into two groups between Bob Aushbacher, Regenerations Operations
Manager and Joe Durban, GIS Senior Technical Forester.
Groups visited the GIS Lab where Joe Durban talked about his Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and how it was a necessary tool for forest managers and for the company. One of the things GIS assists with is tracking wood resources of not only MeadWestvaco but also adjoining wood resources. Foresters have access to this data as well as additional data such as special areas information regarding animal, geologic, historic, and plant community data. This data is a resource for foresters to take these special areas into consideration during their management planning. MeadWestvaco is supplied with data about special areas by Michigan Natural Features Inventory (a Michigan heritage program) and from foresters in the field.
GIS also has applications in landscape planning giving resource managers data like land type association and soil productivity. And GIS is essential for MeadWestvaco SFI commitment. Sustainable management must be documented for forest certification and GIS systems helps monitor management to the degree necessary for verification.
Outside, Bob Aushbacher described how the nursery helps maintain the fiber supply for MeadWestvaco. Most of wood from plantations go to paper mill which uses approximately 50% hardwood/50% softwood. MeadWestvaco's upper peninsula landbase, however, is predominantly hardwood. So they plant 2,500 acres a year of softwood species to balance out supply for the mill. The nursery grows 1.6 million seedling/year. The seedlings varieties include; Red Pine, Hybrid Larch, Tamarack, and Jack Pine. All seedlings are grown in containers which gives them the flexibility to plant anytime during the year as opposed to bare root seedlings.
Bob shared with teachers tree cookies from a 60 year old red maple, 14 year old European larch, and 18 year old red pine. He showed them containers of jack pine, hybrid larch, and red pine seedlings. Finally he took us into the planting shed to show how the seedling containers are filled. Planting is another important part of forest certification. One-fourth of the land harvested by MeadWestvaco gets planted.
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Sampo Club Tour
The Sampo Club is a sportsman's' club that owns approximately 1200
acre of forestland near Gwinn, Michigan. They are a non-profit organization whose current members are third generation owners with a
strong ethic to improve the property for future generations. The Club participates in the MeadWestvaco
Cooperative Forest Management Program
(CFM) which means they receive expert management assistance and at-cost
practices, when needed. The program also promotes Sustainable Forestry
Initiative compliance on private forest land.
On the bus ride from MeadWestvaco to the Sampo Club, Marshall Gilbert gave teachers an introduction to the history of the Sampo Club and the MeadWestvaco Cooperative Forest Management program. Once there, we broke into two groups between Bill Cook and Marshall Gilbert and explored the club's varied lands.
In the Sampo Club's hardwood stands we learned how timber management coincides with habitat management. The stand we visited was largely even aged hardwoods, the result of having been cut out by logging companies before it was sold to the Sampo Club. Now, they're trying to push it to an all age condition over several cycles with the special feature of maintaining and trying to regenerate oaks for deer and turkeys. The oaks are being managed as crop trees for their acorns which deer and turkey feed on. These trees are marked with orange fencing to assure that they aren't cut down. Trees around the crop trees are removed to give the canopy more room to expand so they have more access to sunlight and more energy to commit to producing acorn seeds.
At the club they use uneven-aged selection management (selective thinning) to manage for high quality sugar maple veneer and saw logs. The method they use is manipulating the canopy. Cutting too many trees isn't good because it encourages branching in sugar maples which is a lumber defect that reduces the tree's value as lumber. On the other hand, if they don't cut enough then the remaining trees don't grow very well due to competition stress exposing them to insects and disease. So forest managers have an optimal density that they work towards and select trees to remove to improve the health of the stand. Insect damaged trees are high on the list because they wouldn't likely live through the next decade. Other trees with limited morality will be taken out to make room for timber growth.
We also learned about the benefit of leaving dead trees for animals (snags.) Snags are habitat for animals like; woodpecker, squirrels, wood ducks, etc. Managers try to leave 6-8 snags per acre.
Bogs are nutrient poor and water stressed environments. Plants that grow there have to conserve resources. Carnivorous plants try to supplement their amino acid and nitrate requirements by capturing insects and digesting them using enzymes. Many plants are drought adapted species. The few spruces present were small even though they were some 50 years old.
Unlike industrial forests where revenue is a goal, the Sampo Club manages mainly for habitat diversity to encourage game species - they are a hunting club, which is a common reason to own land in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. The property is home to a healthy population of whitetail deer, ruffed grouse, and black bear - and mosquitoes (at least one third of the property is wetland). The land is also home to a very diverse forest - growing just about every kind of tree which grows in the northern lake states: sugar maple, red maple, quaking and big tooth aspen, northern red oak, balm of gilead, northern white cedar, balsam fir, black and white spruce, jack pine, red pine, white pine, tamarack, European larch, pin cherry, black cherry, ironwood, tag alder, etc. This patchwork of tree species requires management methods just as diverse: even-aged management (for pines and larch) and uneven-aged management (for hardwood stands). Timber management and habitat enhancement are very complementary, the various methods producing a diversity of habitat. Income generated from timber sales returns to the property. The Sampo Club takes pride in having a well managed forest.
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Lunch
A picnic lunch was provided by MeadWestvaco at the Gwinn Pavillion in the middle of the town of Gwinn, Michigan.
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