KAHILI — Bill Cowern envisions a new plantation system that could replace sugar both in terms of number of jobs and acreage used. Growing trees on all the former sugar lands would, as a planned but incidental side benefit, allow
KAHILI — Bill Cowern envisions a new plantation system that could replace
sugar both in terms of number of jobs and acreage used.
Growing trees on
all the former sugar lands would, as a planned but incidental side benefit,
allow the island to become electrically self-sufficient. Wood chips can be
burned to generate electricity, and with proper management of lands and timber
crops, it could be done in an environmentally friendly and self-sustaining way,
he said.
Practicing what he preaches, Cowern’s Hawaiian Mahogany Company,
Inc. has leases on around 4,000 acres of land from Mount Kahili mauka of
Kaumuali’i Highway back to Koloa, and toward Lihu’e near Halfway Bridge on both
sides of the highway.
“It’s a huge piece of land” well-suited for growing
trees, said Cowern, who has been experimenting with around 100 varieties of
trees on his family’s eight acres of land at Lawa’i. Of those 100 varieties, he
has identified maybe seven which could work commercially.
The large leases
are from the Knudsen family and Grove Farm.
“We’re going to make this one.
This one’s going to go,” he said. After taking over the land which already had
some trees growing on it, Cowern and company plan on planting slowly but
surely, around 100 to 200 acres at a time, with the next 100 going in in
November or December.
For the sloping areas leading up to Kahili, he
envisions a koa forest, which he plans to plant one acre at a time. On other
lands, “specialty lumber” like mahogany, rosewood, and albizia, eventually
destined to be used for furniture, flooring, cabinets, trim — even outdoor
lanai, decks and stairs, are either in the ground or planned for
planting.
Not to sound too grandiose, but Cowern even sees the lumber
industry as a viable alternative to tourism. Investors seem to agree, since
local financial backers have literally come out of the woodwork, so much so
that he has had to turn some away. Still, he gets calls daily from potential
investors seeking an open door to this blossoming industry.
“Apparently,
there’s a lot of people that are interested in timber. We’ve got a real viable
business going,” said Cowern. “I’m thrilled.”
While most of the world’s
timber plantations are growing what in the business is known as “industrial
lumber,” used for paper, chips for medium-density fiberboard, laminated veneer
lumber, and related products, his venture is growing what’s called “specialty
lumber,” he said.
“There has been a huge increase in the number of
industrial lumber plantations,” real and projected, around the world, he
said.
“The specific tree is not as critical an issue as what kind of lumber
we’re growing,” he said. The specialty lumber Hawaiian Mahogany is growing
takes longer to grow, but the potential payoffs are higher than industrial
lumber.
What that means to Kaua’i is that it will produce other jobs and
industries here, he said. The local plantation has the potential to generate a
product worth $30 million to $60 million a year. Once it is turned into
value-added products by skilled craftspeople, it can be worth five, six or
seven times that amount.
That equates to a street value of around $3 a
board foot at harvest to $500 a board foot once it’s ready to be used for wood
trim, doors, paneling and other uses, he said.
“It’s not going to be a huge
employer as we grow it,” he said. “The real employment comes when you start
harvesting it,” milling it, and working with the wood after it’s harvested and
milled, he continued.
The hardwoods being grown here are also being
examined for possible use in playground equipment, as they resist termites and
rot. While the woods are being grown, no irrigation, pesticides, insecticides
or fertilizers are needed.
And the woods, particularly the albizia, have
flourished on the fertile acreage, growing 40 feet high in two years, compared
to a growth of 30 feet in two years for mahogany. On the Big Island, mahogany
has been known to grow 200 feet high in 14 years, and have trunk diameters of
36 inches in 18 years, he said.
Mechanical pruning and harvesting methods
will be employed, and Cowern and staff are now fabricating trailers for farm
equipment to hold wood chips which initially are being used as mulch and
fertilizer for other trees.
The company has built what amounts to huge
carports, using large barge shipping containers as foundations, to cover the
equipment. Rain is a major factor influencing equipment life, he said.
The
rugged ground also takes its toll on the equipment, forcing Cowern to plan on
getting only about four hours of productive use a day out of the equipment. At
that rate, he can still make his venture work, he said.
Lava rock, piles of
dirt left behind by previous agricultural uses, sticks, and the rolling nature
of the land the company farms all slow the equipment and work.
Lots of time
is spent fabricating and installing heavy steel plates to the bottoms and sides
of the equipment. “You gotta toughen your machines to work here. They’re built
for Kansas” and flat, smooth farmland. “They’re not built for here,” he said of
the equipment.
As a pig runs across an access road in front of Cowern’s
truck on the way to the storage sheds, he talks about the area’s pig
population.
They are everywhere, and are a potential problem that hasn’t
become one for a rather unanticipated reason. The pigs don’t like the smell of
the new plastic put down over layers of wood-chip fertilizer and mulch, so stay
away from it.
The plastic helps keep the nutrients from leaching away, and
leaves and twigs dropping from the trees provide more nutrients. Pigs rooting
for insects and other food sources near the trees could lead to the pigs
knocking over the young trees, he said.
So far, that hasn’t been a problem
(knock on albizia).
The plantation’s potential payoff is significant. Once
the company can guarantee a steady supply of wood, by harvesting 200-acre
parcels consistently and continuously, there is $15 million to $45 million in
revenue to be made, with $3 million to $5 million being the cost of harvesting
and processing.
It will be about four years before the venture sees its
first profit, but the investors are patient, and know this is a long-term idea.
“These people are in it for the long haul, and they know it’s going to take
some time.”
Because the hardwoods are slow-growing, Cowern, 56, figures he
won’t be around to see the real fruits of his labors. “I’ll get through the
first rotation,” or 15-year growing cycle, he says with a smile.
A forestry
major in college who at one time figured he’d become a forest ranger, Cowern
grew American chestnut on the mainland before journeying to Kaua’i. Once here,
he joined the Kaua’i County Farm Bureau, and could see the writing on the wall
about sugar’s demise and the need for an alternative.
Cowern, along with
others including those in the world’s oil and gas industries, are predicting a
crisis within a decade. After the year 2010, there won’t be enough cheap oil
(easy to get to from established sources) to fuel the world’s
demand.
That’s a major reason he’s pushing lumber for Kaua’i electrical
self-sufficiency. An article in Popular Science magazine contends that the
world finds one new barrel of oil for every four it consumes, and that world
oil discoveries peaked in the 1960s. Experts predict oil production will peak
in 2010, then drop after that.
