Pacific Coast Lumber gives dead Central Coast trees new life. Here’s how it’s done.

When dead and rotting trees are cleared from Cambria’s ailing Monterey pine forest, most end up chipped, chopped for firewood or even chucked in a landfill.

But a small portion are finding a second life as rustic cabins, benches, tables and other wood products milled and handcrafted at Pacific Coast Lumber off Prado Road in San Luis Obispo.

The one-of-a-kind creations — highlighting each log’s unique grain, burls and edges — are part of a pilot project aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions as Cal Fire and Cambria residents work to clear thousands of trees dead and dying from drought and bark beetles.

Sequestering the carbon in solid wood, rather than burning it or letting it rot, is one of the best ways to do that, Cal Fire forester Alan Peters said.

It’s also one that preserves a bit of the forest for people who cherish it.

“Cambrians love their environment. They love their trees,” said Sean O’Brien, Pacific Coast Lumber’s owner since December, when he bought the mill from its original owner, Don Seawater. “When those trees leave, they can feel a sense of loss. We want to make those trees available to them in durable form.”

Some of those trees now make up an 8-by-10-foot shed complete with cupola and 4-foot porch featured at fire safety and other events. Some are being turned into giant slab tables for Central Coast Brewing’s new location on South Higuera Street. And some that came down on a Cambria family’s property were used to make tongue-and-groove flooring for the house.

“So the trees where their kids played growing up will now be preserved in their home forever,” O’Brien said.

The project, funded through a combination of state and federal grants, has involved about 40 trees so far, only a fraction of the many that need to come down. But Cal Fire and the Fire Safe Council of San Luis Obispo County are looking to expand that number when they begin larger harvest operations, which have been delayed because of the busy fire season.

“Saw lumber sequesters carbon for a very long time compared to most other uses of the woody biomass,” said Dan Turner, the county’s Fire Safe Council manager, former Cal Fire chief and volunteer with Cal Poly’s Urban Forest Ecosystem Institute, which is helping to research and measure the effectiveness of efforts to sequester carbon.

The organizations are also exploring other uses for wood that’s not suitable for lumber, including a wood chip-fueled generator whose byproduct, biochar, retains carbons and can be used as a soil amendment.

In the meantime, O’Brien and his small crew at Pacific Coast Lumber are keeping busy salvaging other wood around the county that otherwise might end up burned or chipped, an expensive process without much return.

They recently acquired dozens of walnut logs from a 60-year-old grove in Templeton that J. Lohr Vineyards and Wines is replanting with grapevines. They are brainstorming the best uses for the pylons that moored the RMS Queen Mary in Long Beach for many years and for a sycamore tree that fell in San Luis Obispo’s Cuesta Park.

Many of those pieces will end up in distinctive benches, picnic tables, Adirondack chairs or planters. Some may go 100 yards up the road to a business owned by O’Brien’s wife, A Place to Grow, which makes garden sheds and meditation retreats. Some may even wind up in tiny homes, which O’Brien is considering expanding into.

“We’re taking the pieces that would otherwise get thrown away and reclaiming them for a better and higher purpose,” O’Brien said.

This story was originally published December 8, 2016 at 12:52 AM with the headline "Pacific Coast Lumber gives dead Central Coast trees new life. Here’s how it’s done.."