This aged wood, buried rather than burned after enactment of the Clean Air Act in 1970, is excavated, trucked to Lindon, graded, processed and packaged for landscape purposes.

"We see good opportunities in the soil-enhancement business," says Bryan Sparks, one of three co-owners of Wolf Mountain Products. "Because we're based in Utah, we can offer a cost-competitive product. We can tailor our product to a customer's needs. We're approaching designer soils."

Brad Sparks, Bryan's brother, learned of underground trenches filled with shredded wood near Panguitch while working as a golf-course manager several years ago. Aware of rising costs, decreasing availability and increasing demand for all wood products, Brad recognized the commercial potential of such a wood cache. He and two partners bought the site and began their venture.

Some mystery surrounds the Panguitch trenches, but their history apparently dates to the Clean Air Act of 1970 and the restriction on burning lumber-mill tailings. Without a profitable market in Utah for mulch and wood chips, the tailings piled up. Eventually, lumber companies in and around southern Utah decided to bury the tailings.

The site near Panguitch may have been chosen because it was central to cooperating lumber mills. Machines dug deep trenches and filled them with the tailings. Trenches were topped with about 4 feet of soil, effectively sealing the wood particles from most environmental effects. With the low annual precipitation in the area, the wood has stayed mostly dry and well-preserved.

"We've asked around in other logging and lumber-harvesting areas, and no one has ever heard of anyone burying their lumber-mill tailings," says Bryan Sparks. After inquiring about the history of the Panguitch trenches, he discovered another cache of mill tailings near Fredonia, just south of the Utah border. Wolf Mountain Products soon bought that resource, too.

"We can't tell exactly how much material is at the Fredonia site, because instead of digging trenches they filled up a dry wash and then covered it over with soil," Bryan Sparks says. "But we know there's a lot."

The material at this site is more weathered, probably because rain still ran into the wash.

The amount of lumber byproduct at both sites amazes Sparks. "We've estimated that even if our business is wildly successful, we'll have enough material to supply our customers for 15 to 20 years," he says.

Healthy soil microbes digest high-carbon organic matter like sawdust and wood chips, using most of the nitrogen available in the soil. To make sure plants continue to grow vigorously, Wolf Mountain infuses the wood-chip soil amendments with slow-release nitrogen. The company offers several fertilizer-enriched blends and will customize large orders.

"We've seen great results using our product as topdressing on turfgrass after core aeration," says Sparks. "We also saw amazing root growth of tree transplants in containers."

The company hopes to cooperate with growers and researchers to test their products.

For more information, visit www.wolfmountainproducts.com. And for more about the basics of Utah soils, check out the Utah State University Extension publication series "Solutions to Soil Problems" at www.usual.usu.edu (click on "After results, what next?").

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* MAGGIE WOLF is an assistant professor for Utah State University Extension in Salt Lake County. E-mail her at maggiew@ext.usu.edu.