The now nationally-recognized Urbanwood Project is making building blocks from the wreckage of the emerald ash borer disease that took out much of metro Detroit's leaf canopy.
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"...So far as we know, this cooperative of partners working together and selling urban wood is the only one of its kind in the country," Jessica Simons, Natural Resources Specialist at the Southeast Michigan Resource Conservation and Development Council, told Earth911...
Urbanites (and suburbanites) may not think of themselves as living in forests, but there are actually large numbers of trees within cities. Before Urbanwood came together, Jessica Simons' organization wanted to learn just how many.
"We wanted to find out 'Where is the wood going? Is any being reused? How much wood is there in southeast Michigan?' So we commissioned a couple of different studies using USDA funds," Simons said. The studies concluded there were 73.5 million board feet of wood from dead and dying trees in the area, enough to build 5,600 average sized homes."
More on this project
here.
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