Hollund Industrial Marine intends to log the su

Hollund Industrial Marine intends to log the submerged forests found at the bottom of huge reservoirs formed after building hydroelectric dams throughout the modern world. For much of the past century, decisions have been made to flood vast areas of land to harness the power of water that collects in reservoirs behind these large dams. And, in many of these areas, forests remain locked in time beneath these newly formed lakes.

Limited harvesting took place in these forests prior to flooding. The relatively short timeframe to plan and build a dam (2 to 5 years) versus the relatively long timeframe to log the standing timber (10 to 20 years) made the economics of logging untenable. In some cases, either the technology was not available at the time to harvest or mill these quantities of timber, or the species in the forests was considered undesirable or so abundant that forgoing the resource was deemed an acceptable loss. Oh how times have changed.

In the United States alone, there are more than 6,500 large dams. And, according to the International Commission on Large Dams, there are nearly 50,000 large reservoirs (more than 15 meters or 45 feet in height) worldwide, many of which have ancient forests still standing beneath their waters. The quantity and potential value of this resource is vast --- estimated at 300 to 500 million trees worldwide --- with an approximate current value of $50 billion.

http://perc.org/articles/water-logged-0