Wood Wars in New York
According to Ken Belson of the New York Times there are “Wood Wars” going on around the suburbs of New York City.
Tree trimmers for the utility company, that are used to scavengers in pickup trucks, are now seeing Mercedes-Benzes trailing their crews and loading logs into their (carefully lined) trunks.
Landscapers are also being pestered for the scrap branches they had to pay to dump just a few months ago. “People are desperate to look for ways to heat their homes cheaply.” said one arborist interview by Mr. Belson.
After a summer of high oil and gas prices, suburb dwellers around New York, and across the country, are going low-tech in hopes of reducing their energy bills this winter.
Shipments of pellet stoves, more than tripled in the first half of 2008 compared with the same period in 2007, according to the Hearth, Patio and Barbecue Association; the going rate for a cord of wood is $225, up from $175 last year, and the price of pellets, usually made from compressed sawdust, which has been scarce because of a slowdown in homebuilding, is also up (some people also burn shelled corn, peanuts, cotton and even cherry or olive pits).
Homeowners, not just in rural areas but also in the suburbs, are scrounging for wood, getting permits to cut in parks, hitting up tree-cutting crews and striking deals with neighbors.
Wood and wood-burning heating stoves go through spasms of popularity whenever oil and gas prices shoot up, most recently in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina. But this year’s run-up in prices was so rapid and sustained that people started planning for the coming winter not long after last winter’s snow melted.
Residential heating oil prices during the coming season are projected to increase 25 percent over last heating season, according to a forecast published on Tuesday by the Federal Energy Information Administration. Residential natural gas prices over the same period are projected to increase of about 17 percent.
With demand driving up prices for precut wood, many stove owners are taking to their neighborhood streets in search of free fuel. Some towns try to prevent roadside scrounging by setting up wood-recycling depots. In Yorktown Heights, landscapers can dump their waste wood at a public works center. The town turns some of the wood into mulch, which residents grab to use in their gardens. They can also take as many of the remaining logs as they like, and lately, they have been disappearing faster and faster.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/15/nyregion/15wood.html?em
