The Sawfish Grabs the Logs Underwater

I always relish the chance to sit down with the latest issue of Wired Magazine. This month’s issue, with a new redesign that I’m not wild about, did not disappoint–I read about underwater logging in British Columbia.

Back in 1954, Ootsa Lake was created to power a hydroelectric dam for an aluminum smelter, leaving some $1.2 billion worth of valuable pine trees submerged. With this profit available, it took entrepreneur Chris Godsall to develop a machine to harvest the wood. It’s called the Sawfish, and consists of a platform, a control room, cables, an underwater saw, and a joystick so an operator can cut giant logs at the bottom of the lake and bring them to the surface using airbags.

It’s an ingenious device that provides a truly ecologically perfect harvest. The cold, oxygen-poor water preserves the wood, and instead of skidding them through a forest, they float to the surface to a waiting barge. And because they’ve been underwater, they’re generally stripped of bark and foliage, usually another step and expense.

Godsall has millions of trees waiting for him down in Ootsa lake, and they can scan the bottom for the perfect types of trees, like lodgepole pines, and ignore the less valuable species. He is looking at underwater trees in lakes all over the world, including Volta Lake in Ghana, where the trees sometimes puncture holes in passing boats and ferries.

“Mother Nature never intended for trees to be underwater,” Godsall told Wired’s Michael Behar. Just waiting for a guilt-free harvest by the Sawfish.