The more than $32 million in 2022 wood innovations and community wood grants will, in part, lower wildfire threats nationwide by removing trees that would fuel those fires and consume millions of acres, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in a news release.
Vilsack announced the 2022 wood innovations and community wood grants during his visit to the Junction Development Catalyst project site in West Des Moines, Iowa, on May 27. The grants, bolstered by $12 million from last year's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, are intended to expand wood products' use, strengthen emerging wood markets and support active management to improve forest resilience and health and resilience, according to a news release issued that day.
The grants come at a time when the nation faces an ongoing wildfire crisis.
"Wood innovation and community wood grants projects like these show us how we can tackle problems like the wildfire crisis and climate change while creating new markets, supporting jobs, building affordable housing and improving conditions on our forests at the same time," Vilsack said in the news release. "Removing hazardous trees that would otherwise threaten wildfire-prone communities and having rural, forest-based economies turn those materials into renewable building and energy products stand as examples of how a clean energy economy is within reach."
It was a wood innovations grant awarded last year that funded the Junction Development Catalyst project that uses "mass timber" to construct affordable housing in West Des Moines.
Vilsack served as governor of Iowa between 1999-2007.
"Mass timber is an all-purpose, sturdy and renewable material that can be used in lieu of traditional materials like steel and concrete, with comparable strength and versatility," the news release said. "Wood buildings can store significant amounts of carbon, and mass timber construction largely avoids the fossil energy emissions from the manufacturing of many conventional building materials. The mass timber material for the Junction Development Catalyst project was produced in Oregon from small-diameter Douglas fir trees."
Projects eligible for this year's grants will be those that help eliminate hazardous trees that fuel wildfire, while increasing "equity and progress and development in rural America," the news release said.
"With continued USDA investment and with the ongoing support of President Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, this vision is getting closer every day," Vilsack said.
