Boards from straw

Associated Press

SPOKANE – In the 1940s, Tom Dashiell battled soil erosion on his Rockford farm by planting a perennial crop, Kentucky bluegrass.

Tenacious roots kept the fine clay soil from washing away even as the annual torching of fields created a public health hazard.

Since Washington banned grass stubble burning three years ago, Dashiell’s son, Paul, has been searching for ways to keep grass in the farm’s crop rotation. The answer lies in recouping the cost of baling by turning grass residue into an economically viable product.

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Strawboard might be the solution to Dashiell’s dilemma. But it’s too early to tell if a $6.5 million experiment will pay off for Dashiell, six other Washington grass growers and the Coeur d’Alene Indian Tribe.

At a pilot project in Plummer, grass straw is baked into sweet-smelling boards and marketed as a “tree-free” product. Each bale provides enough fiber for 22 4-by-8-foot sheets of straw-based particle board.

“My daughter says it smells like graham crackers cooking,” said David Bauermeister, general manager of Pacific Northwest Fiber.

The 2 1/2-year-old company is a partnership between the Coeur d’Alene Tribe and Seeds Inc., owned by the seven growers.

Pacific Northwest Fiber expects sales of $4 million next year, but the plant has yet to turn a profit. It relies on regular cash infusions from the owners to keep operating.

“We expected to be profitable by the end of the second year,” Bauermeister said. However, declining prices for particle board has hurt the company’s bottom line.

“There’s a tremendous potential with what we’re trying to do,” Coeur d’Alene Tribe spokesman Bob Bostwick said. “In the meantime, it’s a big risk.”

Since farmers grow thousands of acres of bluegrass on the Coeur d’Alene reservation, the tribe has a huge stake in the outcome.

But the strawboard plant faces daunting odds. Efforts to establish an “ag-fiber” board industry have fared poorly in the United States.

“It’s been an awful story,” said Gene Davis, an industry consultant from Eugene, Ore.

Agri-panel boards are alive and well in other parts of the world. But it’s in places like India and the Philippines where they don’t have as much wood, Davis said.

Agri-boards make up less than 1 percent of the $1.4 billion composite board industry in the United States. But domestic production didn’t really get started until the 1990s, said Chris Leffel, senior vice president for the Composite Panel Association in Gaithersburg, Md.

Leffel sees parallels between the agri-board industry and wood particle board in the 1960s. Lumber mills had started recycling their wood waste into particle board. It too, had to fight for acceptance.

“Most of the (agri-board) facilities have been small,” Leffel said. “I have to think with proper marketing, they can carve out niches and be successful.”

That’s Pacific Northwest Fiber’s strategy, Bauermeister said. The plant’s hope for survival lies in developing relationships with environmentally conscious customers, and the production of specialty products.

Brandrud Furniture is one of the company’s clients. The Auburn manufacturer uses the strawboard for part of the frame in upholstery covered chairs.

“We use it quite extensively where we once used only plywood,” said Beth Ann Morsman, Brandrud’s director of product development.

The furnishings industry is searching for ways to reduce harmful chemicals emitted from carpets, paints and furniture, she said. Strawboard’s lack of formaldehyde was definitely a selling point, Morsman said.

Paul Dashiell, the Rockford grass grower, is disappointed that Pacific Northwest Fiber hasn’t received more government aid.

“You have to look at water quality as well as air quality,” he said. “We want to keep bluegrass in our highly erodible ground because of the environmental aspect … but so far, the tribe is the only one to put its money where its mouth is.”

Eventually, the agri-board industry will catch on, Dashiell predicts.

“I just hope we’re the ones who break the ice.”