IT'S rare that the origins of newly milled 2-by-4s offer a compelling tale. But the boards, beams and planks that Triton Logging Inc. sells to home builders come from the cold, eerie depths of Canadian reservoirs. There, a remote-controlled chainsaw-wielding submarine called a Sawfish, developed by Triton's founder and chief executive, Chris Godsall, harvests trees killed by 20th century dam projects. Although the robotic lumberjack may conjure images of Jules Verne's primitive Nautilus, its mission is to dive 200 feet down in search of new sources of cedar, pine, spruce and Douglas fir.
The pilot sits in a barge on the surface, scanning multiple video screens to navigate the underwater landscape, a dark, surreal scene in which submerged trees look as though they've been frozen in time with bark and pine cones intact. Using a joystick, the Sawfish operator ties a canvas float to each tree, the saw cuts through its base and the tree rockets to the surface.
The wood has been preserved by the dark, oxygen-poor water, and once it is kiln-dried, it can be used as architectural-grade, old-growth lumber for purposes including support beams and custom cabinetry. Triton, a small Canadian company based near Victoria, British Columbia, has offered its lumber to builders mainly on a limited, custom-order basis and has had trouble meeting the growing demand for its products in Canada and the U.S. Much of what they produce has been used for Canadian green-building projects, though some has been making its way to construction projects in Southern California.
Since 2004, Triton has harvested trees from two reservoirs in British Columbia, Ootsa Lake and Lois Lake. But with an aggressive plan to build a school of Sawfish and expand production, and with 45,000 untapped submerged forests in the world, Godsall intends to distribute wood products to the public through the company's website at www.tritonlogging.com within a year. In five years, he hopes to be operating on five continents.
It's part of a national trend in which the green-building marketplace is becoming broader and more sophisticated in its offerings as the home-owning public is becoming more interested in buying ecologically friendly products, said Alex Wilson, the president and chief executive of BuildingGreen Inc. The Vermont-based firm publishes newsletters and books on green building -- the practice of increasing the efficiency with which buildings and their sites use energy, water and materials, and minimizing the effect on human health and the environment.
Pro-conservation sentiment
Even Home Depot is seizing eco-friendliness as a viable market. The store now offers an "Eco Options" labeling system, which helps consumers identify products, such as compact fluorescent light bulbs and items made with sustainable forest wood, that have less of an effect on the environment than competing ones.
In developing Triton, Godsall, who has a background as a marketing consultant, felt he was tapping into pro-conservation consumer sentiment.
"There are a lot of people out there who want to feel good about what they own," Godsall said. "They want to know that what they're buying is not destroying the environment."
Godsall hopes that Triton's products, which include basic lumber, wood paneling and finished furniture, will satisfy the requirements of even the most rigorous eco-conscious shoppers.
As "rediscovered" wood, Triton products are certified by the Rainforest Alliance's SmartWood program. The Rainforest Alliance, which runs the SmartWood program, employs tough standards to make sure that the wood it certifies has been harvested in an environmentally responsible way.
Triton wood qualifies for this certification for several reasons. Since its wood is already dead, the company is not destroying live forests, which provide a habitat for wildlife and absorb carbon dioxide, a gas that would otherwise contribute to global warming.
"We don't disturb fish habitat," Godsall also points out, because an underwater forest is not a natural marine habitat.
Also, Triton's harvesting has little effect on the surrounding ecosystem since the company uses roads and infrastructure already in place around the reservoirs and the underwater operation makes less noise than aboveground methods.
Since it can be difficult to obtain high-quality old-growth timber without damaging the environment, green builders are welcoming Triton's expansion.
Robert Thiele, a San Diego architect, said he looked at a lot of wood before he custom-ordered Triton's Douglas fir poles. He used them as support for the pavilion roof of a multimillion-dollar house he is building in La Jolla for a client.
"The wood is special because the material has been suspended in time; the grains are very tight," he said. "I'm not sure how to get poles like that out of regular lumberyards."
