Solid waste agency to experiment with salvaged flood wood

The local solid waste agency will experiment on three homes beginning this week to see if it makes sense to quickly pull wood from houses before they are demolished and the debris sent to the landfill.

The salvaged wood then would be converted to wood chips and burned as energy, said Marie DeVries, planner/contract administrator with the Cedar Rapids/Linn County Solid Waste Agency.

The “wood harvesting” experiment comes at a time when the city of Cedar Rapids is beginning a new round of home demolitions. In 2009, the city took down 139 flood-damaged homes and it has as many as another 1,200 to demolish.

DeVries said the deconstruction approach can be used on flood homes and other properties if the study proves that it makes sense to do so.