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Flashback to 2005: Bridging the Gap in NSW’s Timber Supply

Wood Central in June last year exposed a deepening hardwood supply crisis in New South Wales with the scarcity of essential resources threatening to disrupt the supply chains for building materials. Australia’s largest state is already grappling with a housing crisis, which threatens to get far worse as timber supplies dry up. This article by consulting editor Jim Bowden in 2005 shows very little has changed in those 20 years. Successive governments have failed as custodians of a forest resource that has been well-managed in perpetuity – for more than a century. And the state’s famous timber bridges are in the crosshairs.


Mon 03 Feb 25

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Plenty of good logs, but they’re all in national parks

A multi-agency set up to conserve and rebuild the iconic timber bridges of New South Wales has hit a brick wall – most of the suitable logs are locked away in nature reserves.

The task may be a bridge too far for the NSW Roads and Traffic Authority (RTA), which has returned almost empty-handed after scouring the sawmills for the quantities of big section, Durability Class 1 construction hardwoods it needs – around 10,000 cub m for more than 120 bridge maintenance projects around the state.

“It’s a joke,” says Grafton sawmiller Spiro Notaras.

“Royalties on logs cut for specialist products such as bridges and wharf piles are now double those for high quality sawlogs and after paying for these logs there’s no guarantee we can recover the section sizes required by the RTA,” he said.

Notaras says the best timbers are locked away in national parks and sawmillers have been left with lower grade material that often fails the specifications for bridge timbers, which, on average, are 370 mm x 150 mm x 8-11 m in length with no heart wood.

“We recently tested 20 logs about 12 metres long and recovered 40 pieces, but RTA only accepted 14 pieces from the biggest logs,” Notaras said.

“Cutting bridge timbers is a specialist business; you need the right gear and the right people. So, it’s a tough call when you’re left with ‘double-royalty’ rejected sections that have to be re-machined and offered to a different market at prices well below cost of production.”

Early this year, Forests NSW joined the timber bridge taskforce convened by the Premier’s Department, along with the NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change, the RTA, and the Heritage Office within the NSW Department of Planning, to develop a whole-of-government strategy for the identification, retention, conservation and safe use of these heritage structures.

Ranging from simple timber beam creek crossings to complex timber truss road structures and rail bridges, they form a tangible record of the state’s engineering history and the evolution of its road and rail transport systems.

“Identifying and securing suitable timbers from state forests and ensuring they find their way to the most significant bridges is an essential first step in the conservation strategy,” RTA construction manager Peter Talbot said.

RTA has funded a full-time heritage bridge timbers officer to consult with regional forest officers and harvesting contractors over the next six months. “We’re looking for ‘cream-of-the-crop’ high durability, heart-free seasoned timbers, and for some bridges we need at least 50 cub m just for the truss spans alone,” Talbot said.

Coffs Harbour sawmiller Gary McArthy was completing a trial cut of logs for RTA when we called. “It’s a shame these government authorities didn’t listen to us back in the mid-1990s when our native timbers were being locked away,” he said. “Nobody put a hand up to ask where these heavy construction timbers would come from in the future.

“Now we’re left with second-grade logs and being charged enough royalties to choke an elephant – and we’re lucky if we can cut two truss members from one log. That’s why we’ve got to charge RTA accordingly to cover our costs. It’s a vicious circle.”

Ray Cross, who has been cutting bridge and pile timbers at Taree for many years from tallowwood and ironbark stands, says there’s plenty of high-grade Durability Class 1 logs – “they’re all in national parks.” He says the logs he’s now left with are often bowed and it can take many extra hours in the sawmill to cut out a straight piece.”

He recalls: “There was a time when we waited 20 years to return to a forest compartment for our logs. Forests NSW is now going back in after just seven or eight years.”

Appropriate timber supply is only one of the challenges confronting the ‘the timber bridge state’. The constantly growing size, weight and speed of commercial vehicles have overtaken the capacities of many timber bridges – “and not all bridges are of equal heritage value; conservation is more feasible for some bridges than for others”

Meanwhile, the taskforce is considering establishing dedicated hardwood plantations to fill bridge girder requirements in 50 to 60 years’ time.

“It’s the measures adopted during that period – the next half century or so – that will determine the survival or disappearance of the timber bridges of New South Wales,” Peter Talbot lamented.

Author

  • Jim Bowden

    Jim Bowden, senior editor and co-publisher of Wood Central. Jim brings 50-plus years’ experience in agriculture and timber journalism. Since he founded Australian Timberman in 1977, he has been devoted to the forest industry – with a passion.

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