Forest management activities are a major part of life in Northwest Montana; they create valuable products such as lumber and employ many throughout the region.
But in the process, wood harvests also create waste that has little economic value and serves as fuel for fires, known as slash piles. Burning slash piles release much of the wood’s beneficial carbon into the air through thick smoke and particulate matter; the rest is ashes.
That’s where CharBoss comes in, and it comes to Montana.
The Forest Service, working with a private company in Naples, Florida – Air Burner, Inc. – created the mobile machine that converts wood waste into biochar, a product full of nutrients that has the potential to restore and improve, especially the soil.
Debbie Page-Dumroese, a researcher at the USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, is a leading expert on soil enrichment and biochar use. He helped develop and patent the CharBoss technology.
“It allows us to put a pulse of organic matter back into the soil so that the soil can do everything we expect it to do,” Page-Dumroese said in an interview last week.
The Rocky Mountain Research Station and the Flathead National Forest showed off the machinery on February 16 during a presentation near Coram. Page-Dumroese will be at the event, among many other industry professionals and interested patrons.
A CharBoss will be used in the Lake Five and Coram area, and data will be collected during forestry work.
“The work to be done on the Flathead here is some of the first scientific data we have,” Page-Dumroese said at the event.
Scott Snelson, a district ranger in the Spotted Bear Ranger District of the Flathead National Forest, wants CharBoss to come to the Flathead because it will help with the negative effects of logging on climate and air quality.
“We have so many piles that we’re essentially lighting up and sending a lot of carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere,” Snelson said. “This is a way for us to take that material and turn it into stable carbon for our benefit.”
The event showed how the CharBoss – a machine the size of a garbage can that actually converts slash into biochar – operates without excessive use of smoke, instead creating a nutrient-rich, charcoal-like material.
Biochar, according to the Rocky Mountain Research Station, can increase soil water-holding capacity, promote plant growth, build landscape resilience and increase soil carbon sequestration potential. They identified four main purposes of the product: agriculture, forest restoration, mine recovery and tree nurseries.
The wood biomass that enters the machine is the remaining product from forestry operations, such as trunks, branches, leaves and other parts of trees. There is a motor on top of the bin that creates an air curtain, which prevents smoke and particles from escaping. An arm of the machine moves back and forth as the wood burns to move excess burnt wood out of the way, preventing ash from forming.
Page-Dumroese said the machines can help with wildfire mitigation work, especially in areas where structures are nearby. The machines can be used by forestry departments, forestry contractors, or even compost facilities and landfills.
He also said that the machine could be copied into a smaller version, such as a furnace or a small controlled fire pit.
The Coram event featured one of these kilns burning biochar slash, a small technology option. While the kiln does not have an air curtain to prevent excess smoke, lighting it from the top down and out of the ground creates a flame cap that helps retain more nutrients and prevent the wood from burning to ash.
“I started doing this a few years ago and I’ve never had as many green seeds as I do now with biochar,” said Page-Dumroese, talking about applying biochar to her garden soil.
There is some doubt about the new product. Keith Hammer, who attended the event, said there was concern that biochar, by removing slash piles, would affect habitat and not help forests in the larger context of carbon sequestration.
Hammer, Chair of the Swan View Coalition in Kalispell, an environmental group, is concerned that the new biochar binds water and nutrients that plants need, in turn preventing plants from taking up those nutrients quickly. He cited a paper written by Page-Dumroese from 2017, which could mean that in some cases, leaving the slash spread on the ground compares favorably with putting biochar on the ground.
Hammer noted that he knew the machine was targeted for slashing due to logging, but was concerned about the future and cost of removing all the slash piles.
“Leave the forest alive and standing,” Hammer said. “… nature has been at it for a long time.”
Page-Dumroese acknowledged the concern, agreeing that the slash piles could be home to animals such as rabbits and gophers. But he assured that the foresters will not burn all the slash piles, especially the big ones in the log landings, mainly to help the native plants to grow faster in the sites.
According to Snelson, CharBoss and biochar technology will improve the ecological base of Montana’s forests. He also noted that if we embrace technology, “we can be real climate leaders.”
Instead of releasing carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere, this technology allows people to trap the material and turn it into stabilized carbon — improving the atmosphere and soil, Snelson said.
Tim McEntire, a Northwest Region Representative with the Montana Logging Association, also attended the Coram event. He said Montana loggers are looking forward to a continued push to diversify the timber business.
“It’s another tool we can use,” McEntire said.
Reporter Kate Heston can be reached at kheston@dailyinterlake.com or at 758-4459.
