[CPEO-MEF] Badger plant timber won't go to waste

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Wisconsin
THE CAPITOL TIMES
Engineer: Badger plant timber won't go to waste
By Bill Novak
July 16, 2003

The Badger Army Ammunition Plant near Baraboo is a veritable forest of
old growth timber, just waiting to be harvested and used in constructing
new homes and buildings.

Before the majority of the 1,400 buildings at the mothballed facility
can be "deconstructed," they need to be inspected and cleared for
dismantling due to the high levels of explosives that have seeped into
and contaminated the wood and foundations of an undetermined number of
buildings.

Taking down buildings on the 7,354-acre site will be a long, tedious
process. But to Dr. Robert Falk, a research engineer at the Forest
Products Lab in Madison, having a chance to harvest millions of board
feet of lumber from the facility will be worth the wait.

The Forest Products Lab is one of the top wood research facilities in
the world. Wisconsin Sen. Herb Kohl announced last week the lab will get
$650,000 to continue Falk's deconstruction feasibility study at Badger
Ammo, a study that started in 2002.

"Traditionally, demolished buildings are a wasted resource," Falk said.
"Buildings are torn down and thrown away."

Falk has been doing building deconstruction for about nine years,
demonstrating the benefits of salvaging materials from old buildings and
recycling just about everything an old structure has to offer.

"Oscar Mayer uses everything but the squeak," Falk said. "We feel the
same way about deconstructing buildings."

Preliminary studies by Falk show at least 200 of the 1,400 buildings at
Badger Ammo are candidates for deconstruction, and another 900 have the
potential to be deconstructed after the Army does a characterization
survey to determine which are so contaminated that they need to be
burned and which are clean enough to either demolish or deconstruct.

This article can be viewed at:
http://www.madison.com/captimes/news/stories/52929.php

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