WKOW 27: Madison, WI Breaking News, Weather and SportsLandowners applaud local lumber law

Landowners applaud local lumber law

NEAR SPRING GREEN (WKOW) -- Local landowners are applauding a new state law designed to make it easier to sell Wisconsin lumber to build homes.

Lawmakers and landowners met at the River Valley School Forest along Highway 14 to make the announcement Saturday morning.

The law will take effect later this month when those landowners start taking certification courses. They say it's important because right now, virtually all lumber at the hardware store is from clear cut forests in the pacific northwest.

"You can't buy local wood for building a house," said Sauk County landowner Jim Birkemeier. "So we're excited because we've got all this timber that needs management. It's totally underutilized and undervalued and this will be a new market."

In the past, Birkemeier has shown 27 News how he typically harvests one tree per acre per year on his land.

To demonstrate the benefits of using local wood in construction, the group showed off this log cabin that students from River Valley High School helped build. The logs were salvaged from the nearby forest. They hope to sell the cabin to fund the school's woodworking program.