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Biomass on NPR

May 26th, 2010

The national media is starting to pay attention to the biomass phenomenon. Dozens of plants are being built across the country and the federal government is offering generous subsidies, but as this NPR story today notes, local opposition has also popped up in some cities.

The NPR story focuses much of its attention on two proposed biomass plants in Shelton, Wash., and toward the end of the story, it quotes a forest ecologist for what would seem to be a neutral take on the carbon impact of biomass plants. And yet the ecologist, Steve Hamburg, works for the Environmental Defense Council, an environmental group that can hardly be called neutral on the issue. It would have been more advisable for the reporter to also talk to someone on the other side of the debate, or better yet, a scientific expert with no horse in the race.

What is also interesting about the story is it has generated a large number of comments. One of the comments in particular reinforces the point that while some locals may be opposed to the plants, they are often very small in number and that most locals are happy to have the jobs and boost to the local economy.

Here is what “Alison Henslee” had to say:

One of our two remaining mills (out of 4) has sawdust decomposing in their yard; the smell isn’t pretty. They ship their biomass because we have no local means to dispose of it. Our landfill is already nearly full to the brim; they no longer take wood because they have to burn it on site. Our community used to be supported by loggers and millworkers; environmentalists and the economy have taken that away from us. Our unemployment rate is sky high and people are scrambling to figure out alternative ways to support their families. It’s hard when you are in a rural area and I don’t think some people grasp that…

…I think we should be open-minded and smart about using up biomass resources that are otherwise going to waste. Our county alone could withstand proper forest management for the next century to deal with dying timber due to bug infestation…byproducts of which could be used in a co-gen plant. But for now, here we sit and watch the trees die while there is no work.

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Posted in Biomass, Carbon Sequestration, Federal Issues, Pacific Northwest, Washington

A troubling development in Canada

May 24th, 2010

More details have emerged about the historic deal reached in Canada between the forest industry and environmental groups, an agreement that we wrote about earlier this month.

Just to recap, Canada’s timber companies, including members of the Forest Products Association of Canada (FPAC), have promised to severely limit logging on 173 million acres of boreal forest, a massive area that crosses into three provinces. In exchange, environmental groups, such as Greenpeace and Forest Ethics, will give their stamp of approval to the industry’s practices and cease all marketing against Canadian wood products.

As the Globe and Mail put it: “Tree huggers and tree cutters are to switch from being sworn enemies to something resembling partners.”

Some observers in Canada have said in the past week that the environmental groups got the better deal. Columnist Peter Foster with the Financial Post said the FPAC “has effectively cried ‘uncle’ and called it accommodation.”

We will reserve judgment on the overall wisdom of the deal, but one slice of the agreement is troubling: the timber industry agreed to use only the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) environmental standard when it harvests wood in the boreal forest. This may not mean that the timber industry will exclusively use the FSC standard across the country, but the boreal forest is huge, and at the very least, this raises some serious questions about the direction of wood certification in Canada. And this development needs to raise some red flags in the U.S. as well.

As we’ve written about many times, there is passionate debate in the U.S. between the FSC and Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) wood-product standards. Some environmental groups think that FSC should be the only accepted standard, which would probably kill the timber industry as we know it and cost countless jobs. And the timber industry says there should be multiple standards to choose from, including SFI.

This debate is manifesting itself as the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) considers changes to its widely accepted LEED green building standard. If the USGBC does not allow SFI products to be part of the LEED standard, then it delivers a large hit to the American timber industry.

What can we glean from the decision by the Canadian timber industry to side with FSC, at least for this one deal? It’s certainly not good news, and it’s more reason to continue to fight here in the U.S. for the acceptance of other wood-product standards.

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Posted in Canada, Climate Change, Green Building Standards

Montana comes together

May 19th, 2010

We try to highlight partnerships wherever we can on the One Voice blog because in the end, it’s inspiring to see all the stakeholders come together for a common solution. Of course that solution usually isn’t perfect, but it’s often better than deadlock.

The news out of Montana this week is that a coalition made up of the Wilderness Society, lumbermen, economic development officials and the U.S. Forest Service has come together to apply for $90 million in federal funds to restore, harvest and thin forests, whack weeds and fix streams, trails and wildlife habitat.

It sounds like the coalition has a good chance of getting the money, according to the article in the Missoulian.

The partnership could be an inspiration for similar deals in other states.

Letters of support already have arrived from Montana senators and county commissioners, from the Montana Logging Association and the National Wildlife Federation, and from the Wilderness Society and Pyramid Mountain Lumber, to name a few.

“It’s incredibly broad-based,” (said Rosalie Sheehy Cates, president of the Montana Community Development Corp). “That’s what makes it so appealing, is everyone’s at this table…”

“…We have been working for years in western Montana to unite the goals of forest health and local livelihoods,” Sheehy Cates said. “This proposal funds the work that accomplishes both.

“This is the future of forest management on federal lands.”

In other news, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) just ruled that biomass plants are not exempt from greenhouse gas permitting requirements. The federal government says that it hasn’t taken a “final position” on the issue, but the decision still came as a surprise to biomass industry leaders.

And as part of the 30th anniversary of the Mount St. Helens eruption, an 83-year-old man who used to log near the mountain told the Longview Daily News that it was lucky the eruption happened on a Sunday. Otherwise, hundreds of loggers would have been working nearby and may have died in the blast.

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Posted in Biomass, Federal Issues, Montana, Washington

SFI pushes for LEED status

May 17th, 2010

The U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) is still considering changes to its LEED building standard that could allow wood products certified by other groups besides the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). As we’ve written about before, this is an issue of huge importance for the timber industry. If some environmental groups are successful in maintaining the FSC monopoly on USGBC standards, then the timber industry as we know it will cease to exist.

The latest news in the debate over the LEED building standard is that the USGBC has issued a third draft of  its new rules that would allow other forest certifications, such as the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) — but only in a limited way.  The USGBC would give projects with FSC wood a full credit, and other standards like SFI just a half-credit in the LEED point system.

As Building Green points out, this proposed change is opposed by both sides:

Industry groups opposed to this approach argue that LEED would continue to provide FSC with an unwarranted advantage, while environmental groups are concerned about any move that would allow industry programs into LEED.

While the USGBC continues to consider its rule change, we are heartened to see that SFI has taken an active role in promoting the cause of opening up the LEED standard to other wood certifications. The Sustainable Forestry Initiative is spreading the word through its Twitter account as well as the Good For Forests blog.

For instance, on Good For Forests, you will find that such leaders as The Conservation Fund, Washington Gov. Christine Gregoire and Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty have endorsed the campaign to open up the LEED standards to other certifications, and that the trend internationally is to adopt an inclusive policy on forest certification.

Be sure to add Good For Forests to your bookmarks, follow the SFI Twitter account and become part of the movement to open up the LEED standard.

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Posted in Green Building Standards

Timber wars may be over — in Canada

May 14th, 2010

Are the timber wars over in Canada? That seems to be the gist of this story today from the Montreal Gazette. According to the article, the Canadian timber industry has brokered a deal with leading environmental groups, including Greenpeace, that may allow both parties to move forward without conflict.

The deal goes like this: Canada’s timber companies promise to stop all logging on 173 million acres of boreal forest, a massive area that crosses into three provinces, in exchange for environmental groups giving their stamp of approval to the industry’s practices and to cease all marketing against Canadian wood products.

The Gazette says that the deal would end the national forest battles that have gone on since the late ’80s, set a blueprint for the country’s “green revolution,” and make Canadian wood products more attractive on the world market.

Is this kind of thing possible in the U.S.? Even if it is possible, is it advisable? Whatever the answer, the story coming from our neighbor to the north is compelling news.

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Posted in Canada

Biomass opponents fill in the blanks

May 12th, 2010

Biomass plants are being built or planned around the U.S., and they provide a valuable economic and environmental outlet for the wood waste that is left behind from forestry. Biomass has received plenty of key endorsements from officials on the federal level as well as from many states — political leaders who are looking for cleaner energy sources than coal.

But biomass plants have also been seeing some opposition on the local level, from environmental activists who are concerned that the plants may produce as much air pollution as coal and other traditional energy sources.  There doesn’t seem to be any evidence that this is actually true, but it’s still important to note that the opposition is there.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch just wrote a story about the opposition that has sprung up around several biomass plants planned in Missouri. The article does as good a job as we have seen of outlining all the different kinds of groups and interests that rally for or against biomass.

The story paints a familiar picture: proposed biomass plants with tremendous momentum from federal and state incentives and yet some lingering, stingy opposition on the local level.

But as those (biomass plant) plans now go before state regulators, some environmentalists, property owners and timber industry officials are beginning to balk. They worry some of the proposed plants will create new sources of air pollution, strain local water supplies and possibly prompt Missouri’s Ozark forests to be clear-cut.

“I think the environmental community wants to embrace biomass because it’s not coal,” said Kathleen Logan Smith, director of the Missouri Coalition for the Environment. “Nobody wants to see more coal plants. But I’m not sure ‘it’s not coal’ is a good enough reason to jump on board.”

Those concerns are being raised just as several new biomass projects are beginning to pick up momentum, lured to Missouri by both federal subsidies and the expected increase in demand as a result of the new voter-approved renewable energy standard established under Proposition C. That ballot initiative directs investor-owned utilities to acquire 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2021.

It does appear that much of the opposition has to do with the fact that biomass is still a relatively unknown energy source, in the sense that most people have never seen it in action. So some people fill in the blanks with the least forgiving estimates and possibilities they can think of. But once biomass plants really get going around the country, we will have firm data and personal experience as a guide.

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Posted in Biomass, Missouri

Fighting the pine beetle

May 6th, 2010

The mountain pine beetle infestation that has hit Western forests has been devastating.  The beetle has killed millions of acres of trees in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Montana, Oregon, Idaho and Washington and is the worst infestation in nearly 30 years.

Just this week, a U.S. regional forester told the U.S. House Agriculture Committee that some national forests in Colorado and Wyoming may have to be closed because all the dead trees have become a safety hazard. About 100,000 trees are falling a day in the two states’ national forests, said forester Rick Cables.

Then here’s what the Wyoming governor had to say:

During his regular news conference Tuesday, Gov. Dave Freudenthal said the pine beetle epidemic “is going to turn out to be an ecological disaster in terms of its impact on everything from fishing to how we manage water to, frankly, just the water available for agricultural use.”

But, despite the devastation, there are also some positive signs this week:

  • U.S. senators from Colorado and Idaho have just introduced legislation that would allow the timber industry to help solve the problem, by thinning forests and ensuring forests of varying age.
  • In Salida, Colo., foresters are finishing a 144-acre timber project that will allow the harvest of trees that would have been killed by the pine beetle anyway, which then creates a valuable fire break.
  • A Colorado State University professor is working with a California company on a way to convert pine beetle-killed trees to a kind of biofuel called butanol.

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Posted in Biomass, Colorado, Federal Issues, Forest Fires, Pine Beetle, Wyoming

Respecting the fire

May 4th, 2010

What gets lost sometimes in the debate over forest management is the importance of fire in the health of our forests. Just in the last couple days, two articles were published that illuminate this point very clearly.

First off, great news out of the Sierra Nevada region of California: a state agency is working toward a plan to thin forests to protect them from catastrophic fires. Even better news: the agency, the Sierra Nevada Conservancy, is working closely with timber, environmental, biomass and government officals to make sure all the stakeholders are involved.

And thinning forests will lead to more business and much-needed jobs, according to the story in the Fresno Bee:

Steve Wilensky, a Calaveras County supervisor, said his district once had 22 lumber mills, but the last closed 16 years ago.

Now, more than 25% of the work force is unemployed and 86% of children are eligible for at least partially paid school lunches.

But there is hope: Wilensky helped write a jobs-creation program that began in 2005 with the aim of putting people to work thinning forests, moving wood chips to a biomass plant and burning the wood to create electricity. He also sees a market for wood pellets, posts and poles, pressed logs and craftsman woodworking products.

Wilensky’s program is a model for some of the (Sierra Nevada) initiative’s proposals.

New Sierra jobs could include forest thinning, biomass energy plants or manufacturing forest-related items, such as pellets for wood stoves.

Secondly, the Wenatchee World has a nice profile of Dale Swedberg, a manager for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, who explains why fire, and thinning forests to protect them from large fires, is critical to keeping forests healthy.

Swedberg is heading up a project to thin and burn 2,000 acres of wildlife preserve. It will improve soil quality, allow certain helpful plants to grow while killing weeds, and strengthen waterways.

On a different note, we wanted to also provide links to a few recent biomass stories that are of interest: a proposed biomass plant in Mason County, Wash., is facing opposition from a small number of activists. And yet a similar plant proposed in Gainesville, Fla, was given a positive editorial in the local paper. And lastly, sustainable finance experts, in London for an international conference on sustainable forestry, see a bright future for biomass.

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Posted in Biomass, California, Forest Fires, Pacific Northwest, Washington