Katrina Salvage

[Texas Ranger]

For more information on the article:  http://www.enn.com/biz.html?id=1052

Company Reopening Mississippi Mills To Handle Damaged Timber

September 19, 2005 — By Emily Wagster Pettus, Associated Press

JACKSON, Miss. — Georgia-Pacific Corp. will bring 500 jobs to southwest Mississippi by reopening two mills to salvage and process excess timber that was knocked to the ground by Hurricane Katrina, Gov. Haley Barbour said Friday.

[Ron Scott]

USDA Scientists Estimate Katrina Destroyed 19 Million Board Feet of Timber

September 15 – Scientists from the USDA Forest Service's Southern Research Station reported that Katrina damaged or destroyed approximately 19 billion board feet of timber estimated at a value of $5 billion in the three states. The damage is spread across five million acres of forestland with the majority of the affected forestland under private ownership.

Quoted in a recent Greenwire report about Hurricane Katrina's effect on the forest products industry, SAF Executive Vice-President Michael Goergen said that reforestation decisions will essentially be made by thousands of individual landowners. "It will depend on independent decisions of those landowners," he said, noting that not all landowners manage their acreage for timber harvests.

According to Forest Service researchers, the storm damaged enough wood to produce 800,000 single family homes and 25 million tons of paper and paperboard.

For more information about the effect of Hurricane Katrina on the nation's forestland, visit the USDA website.

For the story as covered by AgWeb online, visit their website.