forests

- by Paul Gottlieb, February 27, 2014. Source: Peninsula Daily News

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"170","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"width: 274px; height: 222px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; float: left;","title":"Photo: Peninsula Daily News"}}]]PORT ANGELES — Fuel-system problems with Nippon Paper Industries USA’s newly expanded biomass cogeneration plant have caused a two-week shutdown of the mill, according to a union official.

Darrel Reetz, vice president of the Association of Western Pulp & Paper Workers Local 155, said Thursday he is confident the plant will be up and running again by about March 9.

“We are having some issues that need to be fixed on the fuel system,” Reetz said.

- by Kevin Murphy, February 26, 2014. Source: Wasau Daily Herald

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"169","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"width: 333px; height: 221px; float: left; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;","title":"Photo: Corey Schjoth"}}]]The recently built power plant at Domtar paper mill is getting only 10 percent of its fuel from logging waste, which originally was supposed to supply nearly all of the plant’s energy needs.

The 50-megawatt, $255 million power plant went online in November to provide steam for Domtar’s paper operations and a clean source of power for WE Energies. The plant will burn 500,000 tons of biomass annually, said Cathy Schulze, a WE Energies spokeswoman.

- by Mike Baker, Ken Armstrong, and Hal Bernton, March 25, 2014. Source: The Seattle Times

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"167","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"480","style":"width: 352px; height: 480px; float: left; margin-right: 10px; margin-left: 10px;","title":"Photo: Associated Press","width":"352"}}]]The plateau above the soggy hillside that gave way Saturday has been logged for almost a century, with hundreds of acres of softwoods cut and hauled away, according to state records.

But in recent decades, as the slope has become more unstable, scientists have increasingly challenged the timber harvests, with some even warning of possible calamity.

The state has continued to allow logging on the plateau, although it has imposed restrictions at least twice since the 1980s. The remnant of one clear-cut operation is visible in aerial photographs of Saturday’s monstrous mudslide. A triangle — 7½ acres, the shape of a pie slice — can be seen atop the destruction, its tip just cutting into where the hill collapsed.

Multiple factors can contribute to a slide.

With the hill that caved in over the weekend, geologists have pointed to the Stillaguamish River’s erosion of the hill’s base, or toe.

But logging can also play a role in instigating or intensifying a slide, by increasing the amount of water seeping into an unstable zone, according to an analysis of the watershed submitted to the state Department of Natural Resources (DNR).

- by Rebecca Everett, March 17, 2014. Source: Daily Hampshire Gazette

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"162","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"356","style":"width: 450px; height: 297px; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px; float: left;","title":"Northampton watershed (Photo: Chris Matera)","width":"480"}}]]Chris Matera of Northampton said he was driving through Whately to go skiing two weeks ago when he noticed piles of fresh-cut logs at the mouth of a trail into a forest.

“I said, ‘Wait, isn’t that the watershed?,’” he recalled recently.

Matera, who heads a statewide group opposed to logging on publicly owned land called Massachusetts Forest Watch, was appalled to think Northampton was allowing logging on the watershed surrounding the Francis P. Ryan and West Whately reservoirs.

Demand for biomass energy in Colorado will require logging in 220,000 acres of the White River National Forest. -Ed.

- by Allen Best, March 6, 2014. Source: Mountain Town News

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"40","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"360","style":"width: 333px; height: 250px; float: left; margin-left: 10px; margin-right: 10px;","width":"480"}}]]For most of the last decade, Coloradans have been talking about how to make good use of their mountain forests, dying and gray. Something is finally happening.

In Gypsum, 140 miles west of Denver, a biomass mill began operations in December, burning wood to create 10 megawatts of round-the-clock electricity.

In Colorado Springs, the city utility began mixing biomass with coal in January to produce 4.5 megawatts of power.

In Pagosa Springs, a 5-megawatt biomass plant may be launched next year, producing one-sixth of the base-load demand in Archuleta County

West Coast Wood Exports Undercut Economy and Environment

- by Samantha Chirillo, Energy Justice Network

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"154","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"365","style":"width: 333px; height: 253px; margin-left: 7px; margin-right: 7px; float: left;","width":"480"}}]]Since the European Union (EU) countries set high carbon reduction standards and counted biomass energy as carbon neutral and renewable, biomass exports from the southeastern U.S. have skyrocketed.

Now, as Japan looks for an alternative to nuclear energy, as U.S. corporations get tax breaks to relocate facilities to the countries of least regulation, as trans-Pacific trade agreements give these corporations power over governments, and as Oregon’s Congressional delegation plans to log more public forest, west coast ports are preparing for log and biomass export expansion. In 2013 alone, log and chip exports from the northwestern U.S. already doubled, according to Public Interest Forester Roy Keene. Exports are the surest path to forest decline, as history has shown, says Keene.  

Anti-Biomass Incineration Campaign - National Conference Call 

Thursday, December 5, 2013

TOPIC: "Exporting Our Forests and Economy"

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"142","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"265","style":"width: 300px; height: 199px; float: left; margin-left: 7px; margin-right: 7px;","width":"400"}}]]RECORDING: Biomass Incinerator Noise – December 2013

We discuss the economic and environmental impacts of shipping logs, wood pellets, and other forest products overseas from the West and East coasts in the U.S.

Guest speakers:

-Roy Keene, Public Interest Forester
-Greg Pallesen, Association of Western Pulp and Paper Workers
- Rachel Smolker, Biofuelwatch

Facilitator: Josh Schlossberg, Energy Justice Network

Notes: Samantha Chirillo, Energy Justice Network

Biomass Thermal: The Logs That Break the Forest’s Back

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"153","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"360","style":"width: 450px; height: 338px; margin-left: 7px; margin-right: 7px; float: left;","width":"480"}}]]A sector of the biomass incineration industry claims to be turning over a new “green” leaf by building smaller, slightly more energy-efficient facilities focused on heating rather than electricity. Meanwhile, behind the smokescreen, biomass thermal advocates are supporting much of the same forest-raiding, climate-busting, and lung-searing policies as the biomass power pushers.

If successful, the biomass thermal industry’s legislative agenda won’t result in smaller, higher-efficiency biomass heating facilities replacing larger, lower-efficiency biomass power facilities  —  it will simply spur the construction of both.

250 Scientists Concerned about Post-fire Logging

November 4, 2013, Source: Yuba.net

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"151","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"300","style":"width: 250px; height: 167px; margin-left: 7px; margin-right: 7px; float: left;","width":"450"}}]]In an open letter to the U.S. Congress, 250 scientists request that Congress show restraint in speeding up logging in the wake of this year's wildfires, most notably the Rim fire in the Stanislaus National Forest and Yosemite National Park.

The scientists raised concerns that currently proposed legislation (HR1526, which passed in the House in September, and HR3188, now before the House) would seriously undermine the ecological integrity of forest ecosystems, setting back their ability to regenerate after wildfires.