KMVT interviews Crandall about using timber to build high-rise buildings
KMVT of Southern Idaho spoke with Mindy Crandall, an assistant professor of forest landscape management at the University of Maine, for the report, “Maine timber advocate pushes for high-rise buildings.” The roots of Maine’s timber industry are weakening with less demand for paper, according to the report. “We lost about five pulp and paper mills in the span of 18 months, and that has a big impact on the industry,” Crandall said. To survive, she suggested the industry could branch out into skyscrapers, if the U.S. allows them to be made out of wood, like Canada and other European countries do. “If we can get some of these plants up and running in Maine, we’ve got the resource, we’ve got the workforce, and we’re really close to a big market for these types of structures,” she said. A bipartisan group of lawmakers have sponsored a bill, The Timber Innovation Act, that directs the Department of Agriculture to use existing money to research and market the possibility of constructing wood buildings 85 feet and taller, KMVT reported.