Cedar Rapids looks into ‘harvesting’ wood from flooded homes

The local solid waste agency and City Hall want to see if it makes sense to harvest wood from flood-damaged homes to keep it out of the landfill after demolition.

The two government entities will conduct a pilot “deconstruction” project on three flood-damaged homes now owned by the city - 1231 Fifth St. SE, 208 11th Ave. SE and 1021 Fifth St. NW - to study the cost and time that go into saving the wood so it can be ground up and burned for energy.

Marie DeVries, planner and contract administrator for the Cedar Rapids/Linn County Solid Waste Agency, said Monday that the trial project would differ from traditional deconstruction, in which workers spend several days before demolition salvaging materials from a home for reuse.

The trial, she said, is designed to harvest wood quickly and then to see if the approach can be used on a large scale as the city embarks on the “incredible amount of work” to demolish some 1,200 flood-damaged homes in the months ahead.

DeVries said most of the damaged homes have mold inside, and some are attracting vermin. Such health and safety risks, she said, have persuaded the city to take the structures down as quickly as possible once the homes are bought out.

The waste agency is pushing the pilot project because of its commitment to divert as much as possible from the landfill, she said.

Pallets and other wood that comes to the landfill now are ground up and shipped to a power plant in Cassville, Wis. The agency doesn't make money on the endeavor, and it likely will not make money on pre-demolition wood harvesting, DeVries said.

But she called the savings to the agency and the community invaluable if the method can free up some valuable landfill space.

“You can hardly put a price on that,” she said.

DeVries said the agency is working to design the deconstruction pilot project with Dave Bennick, owner of RE-USE Consulting of Bellingham, Wash. Bennick's tactics combine the use of manual labor and heavy equipment, she said.

The hope is that the deconstruction as part of a demolition can be done in a timely and cost-efficient way that competes with the cost of a regular demolition, which DeVries said can be between $10,000 and $12,000 a home. The Federal Emergency Management Agency will cover demolition costs of the flood-damaged properties, she said.