New Jersey Municipality Chooses Tropical Hardwood over Superior Domestic Product

In the aftermath of hurricane Sandy on the Belmar beach-front  the pilings are all that is left of the boardwalk. Borough Council has been criticized for proposing to use a tropical wood to replace it. / Bob Bielk/Staff photographer

October's Hurricane Sandy destroyed the beach board-walk in the borough of Belmar NJ and the time has come for its reconstruction to be put out to tender. The local government has had to grapple with a common question in public projects requiring a large amount of timber: ‘What species do we use?’

It has come to light that the authority has specified that Ipê (commonly misspelled "epay") be used. Ipê is native to Florida, but is commercially imported into the US from South America and is not a sustainable product. Jeff Tittel, the director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club said to Dan Radel of Asbury Park Press: “Using this wood impacts critically and environmentally important rainforest and adds greenhouse gases, increasing climate disruption,”

Tabebuia trees (the species that give us Ipê wood) typically grow in densities of only one or two trees per acre. Therefore, large areas of forest must be searched and cut down to create paths to harvest.

The use of Ipê for this kind of project in the United States began in the 1960's and continues to this day. In 2009, Wildwood NJ (about 100-miles south of Belmar) rebuilt a three-block section of their board-walk out of Ipê at a cost of $4 million (£2.46 million), part of a 10-year, $10 million (£6.15 million) total refurbishment. The Wildwood authorities highlighted the same reasons as Belmar for choosing Ipê over more sustainable timber or another material.

After receiving the originally specified Black Locust timber for the project in 2008, Mayor of Wildwood, Ernie Troiano, Jr. said to Lauren Suit of the Cape May County Herald: “What we got was horrible. Absolutely terrible and there was still bits of bark on it. There was no way we were comfortable using that wood to rebuild...Ipê was available and we had to move on it.” He was also not open to waiting for the Black Locust supplier to replace the poor quality timber: “We would never make the Easter opening,” he said. “I couldn’t do that to the piers and all the businesses up there.” As in Cornwall, tourism is a massive contributor to the economy of the New Jersey coastal resorts. One can understand his eagerness to complete the build before the peak season arrived, but surely there needs to be a longer term consideration for the environment and for the useful life of the finished structure.

An interesting comment was received on Lauren Suit’s article from 2008 from a local business owner: “I have a sawmill in the area, and suggested New Jersey’s own White Oak, local wood, local sawyers make money, less transit.” Now, obviously this person has a stake in their local forestry industry, but surely they have a point! We would certainly have the same view in Devon and Cornwall; not only is the delivery distance reduced to almost nothing (low log miles), but the timber is also acclimatised to local weather conditions.

Both these New Jersey projects also considered (and were recommended) the use of Robinia pseudoacacia, or ‘Black Locust’ timber. This hardwood is native to the south-eastern United States (minimising log miles), is one of the heaviest and hardest woods in North America, is naturally resistant to rot and can have a useful service life of 100 years in contact with the ground. The trees are also fast growing, making it ideal for forestry into the future and is a highly prized biomass fuel, as it burns slowly, with little visible flame or smoke, and has a higher heat content (comparable to anthracite) than any other species that grows as widely in the eastern United States.

Mr. Tittel of the Sierra Club also said of the Belmar project: “The municipality should also look at using salvaged wood, especially in the wake of Hurricane Sandy”.

COURTESY Tom Lozinski: Aerial kite shot of Belmar.

Dan Radel of Asbury Park Press got Mayor of Belmar Matthew Doherty on record saying that he is aware of the environmental impact, but contends that the borough is doing its due diligence on the product: “We’d only purchase it if we could find it from a sustainable or renewable source”.

With a really viable natural domestic alternative available, not to mention all the man-made possibilities that are near to having closed-loop lifecycles and have inordinately long service lives... Surely, tropical hardwood really can't be the way to go!

What do you think? Are you a local member of the New Jersey forestry industry? Do you work for a local sawmill in New Jersey? Are you a local resident affected by Hurricane Sandy? Do you work for one of the contractors?

Continue the conversation! You can read and comment on Dan Radel’s article: “Belmar faces criticism over tropical hardwood in boardwalk reconstruction” here: http://www.app.com/article/20121218/NJNEWS/312180096?nclick_check=1

Dan is also on Twitter: http://twitter.com/DanielRadelAPP

The New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club is also on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NJSierraClub

You can also read and comment on the 2008 article from the Cape May County Herald here: http://www.capemaycountyherald.com/article/38282-wildwood-opts-ipe-wood-over-black-locust-boardwalk-construction