A pilot project to rehabilitate the 2017 Elephant Hill wildfire-affected area at Pressy Lake in the South Cariboo continues.
The project is focused on the efficient extraction and utilization of seven year old burnt fibre on a large, 450-plus hectare swath of land.
Operations Manager at Tsideldel Biomass Joe Webster said the actual test area that turned out to be 231 hectares has been completed.
“We took a grand total of 27,430 cubic metres of biomass from that area. That’s a combination of chips, hog fuel and biomass for the power plants in Williams Lake. The variability of the burn was dictating how the operation went and the big finding for me was you can’t predict that at all. It’s the biggest challenge in the whole project.”
Webster said after the analysis of all the data on what was done, they decided to finish that permit so there is another 250 hectares to do which are currently being worked on now.
“We should finish up in August if all goes well. The bunchers are cutting there right now and the skidders are due to start next week. We have some other areas pinpointed already within the burn and we’re looking to get the permitting done, if it can be done, for September, October, then that would be our next winter project. The ideal situation would be that we treat another 3 to 4 hundred hectares by Springtime,” Webster said.
Webster noted that Cariboo Pulp in Quesnel took some of the fibre as a test to see if they could run it and they were happy and are looking for more in the future.
“That 231 hectares that we completed as a pilot project as of March 31st has been planted already this Spring. We had extra trees so Central Chilcotin Rehabilitation Ltd. had a crew go in there for a week and a half prepping and planting. So now we cross our fingers and hope everything works the way its planned and we have a new forest,” Webster said.
Pressy Lake is located East of 70 Mile and West of Little Fort off Highway 24 near Bridge Lake.
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