health

Anti-Biomass Incineration Campaign - National Conference Call Notes

Thursday, September 5, 2013 at 3pm EST

Biomass Industry Fans Flames of Wildfire Hysteria 

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"115","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"270","style":"width: 388px; height: 260px; margin-left: 7px; margin-right: 7px; float: left;","width":"480"}}]]California’s Rim fire, expected to be fully “contained” by October after igniting in Yosemite National Park on August 17, will ultimately benefit the forests it has passed through. While media accounts sensationalize such large wildfires as “catastrophic” and “disastrous,” science demonstrates that, to the contrary, fire is a vital component of western forest ecosystems.

Journalists mischaracterize the ecological function of wildfire as “devastation” or refer to forests that have experienced fire as a “barren wasteland,” exploiting emotions to sell newspapers. Yet media is only an accomplice to one of the masterminds ultimately responsible for fanning the flames of wildfire hysteria: the biomass energy industry.

Health Component Missing from Biomass Air Quality Study

- by Diana Somerville

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"43","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"159","style":"width: 318px; height: 177px; float: left; margin-left: 7px; margin-right: 7px;","width":"318"}}]]We will soon be making history here on the Olympic Peninsula, or becoming guinea pigs. Thanks to public pressure and legislative support, a two-year study of a unique aspect of our air quality may begin next month. The Olympic Region Clean Air Agency (ORCAA), working with University of Washington atmospheric scientists, will look at changes downwind from biomass cogeneration plants adjacent to the existing paper mills in Port Angeles and Port Townsend. These plants will generate electricity by burning smaller trees and forestry waste with construction and demolition debris often added to the mix.

E.U. Agroenergy Policy: A Foreseeable Disaster

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"109","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"480","style":"height: 499px; margin-left: 7px; margin-right: 7px; float: left; width: 275px;","width":"353"}}]]In a misguided attempt to allegedly tackle runaway climate change, the European Union (E.U.) is implementing policy that would increase carbon dioxide emissions, displace native peoples, threaten public health, and degrade forests and watersheds.

A new report, A Foreseeable Disaster: The European Union’s agroenergy policies and the global land and water grab, demonstrates that schemes to convert plants and trees into electricity, liquid fuels, and heat, a.k.a. agroenergy or agromass, will do more harm than good.

The report, written by Helena Paul and published in July 2013 by Transnational Institute, Centre for Research and Documentation Chile-Latin America (FDCL), and Econexus for Hands off the Land Alliance, challenges an expansion of European agroenergy by “critically analysing the origins, claims, and effects of the European Union’s (EU) transition to a new bioeconomy.”

Agromass, a subset of biomass, consists of “so-called wastes and residues from agriculture and forestry (for example, waste products from oil palm plantations: oil palm shells, empty fruit bunches, palm fronds, trunks, palm kernel shells and mesocarp fibres).” Major components of agromass are wood chips and pellets—which utilize whole trees, treetops and limbs—grasses, agricultural crops and agricultural residues. Agromass can also include municipal solid waste and sewage.

Tracking Biomass Air Pollution on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"107","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"324","style":"width: 380px; height: 275px; margin-left: 7px; margin-right: 7px; float: left;","title":"Port Townsend Paper Company. Photo: Elaine Bailey","width":"480"}}]]Government agencies and policymakers have long turned a deaf ear to concerns with human health threats from biomass incineration. A new experimental study underway on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula may ultimately compel elected officials to act to protect public health from biomass incineration, while serving as a model for communities around the nation.

The Olympic Region Clean Air Agency (ORCAA) budgeted over half a million dollars to conduct this new experimental study “focusing on the impacts of biomass fueled cogeneration facilities on air quality downwind,” with additional monitoring of the air quality near two proposed biomass incinerators, a 20-megawatt facility at Nippon Industries in Port Angeles and a 24-megawatt facility at Port Townsend Paper Company in Port Townsend.

How to Stop a Biomass Incinerator

- by People for Clean Mountains

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"106","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"458","style":"width: 275px; height: 262px; margin-left: 7px; margin-right: 7px; float: left;","width":"480"}}]]On July 22, 2013 the Transylvania County, North Carolina Board of Commissioners voted 3-2 to enact a one year moratorium on the development and permitting of any biomass facility producing any output. This was the culmination of four months of effort by the citizens and officials of our community.

What was originally viewed as a NIMBY response to a proposal to bring “cutting edge” technology into our county, evolved past the notion of “Not In Anyone’s Back Yard” to a viewpoint of NOPE, Not on Planet Earth. Biomass incineration is a global issue, spewing tons of toxic chemicals and particulates into the atmosphere, destroying our environment through both pollution and choices of feedstock, from the introduction of invasive species of grass to feed the burners, to GMO trees and the decimation of our precious forests, up to and including the lunacy of burning garbage. 

Biomass Carpetbaggers

- by Tom Tolg, August 20, 2013. Source: The Recorder  

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"104","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"298","style":"width: 300px; height: 186px; float: left; margin-left: 7px; margin-right: 7px;","width":"480"}}]]If Editor Blagg’s pro-biomass column was a meal I’d say it was a thin gruel of tainted leftovers along with a fruit salad loaded with sour grapes. 

Leaving the dinner table, we stumble onto “carpetbaggers” who Mr. Blagg identifies with the anti-biomass folks. If you Google “carpetbaggers,” you find that the term refers to post-Civil War quick-buck artists, or entrepreneurs if you wish, from outside the South, much like that slick-talking Matt Wolfe who envisioned profiting handsomely while clear-cutting hundreds or thousands of acres and adding more “particulates” to the air we breathe.

New York Biomass Incinerator Awaits $100 Million Handout

August 17, 2013, Source: Mid Hudson News Network

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"103","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","height":"120","style":"width: 101px; height: 120px; float: left; margin-left: 7px; margin-right: 7px;","width":"101"}}]]The Taylor Biomass waste-to-energy project has had the support of U.S. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-Cold Spring, since his candidacy for Congress last year.

The Orange County facility is awaiting a $100 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy and the freshman lawmaker said Thursday that the Obama Administration is now taking note of the project.

Biomass Moratorium for Brevard County, North Carolina

- by Kimberly King, August 2, 2013. Source: WLOS

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_large","fid":"94","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","style":"width: 333px; height: 314px; float: left; margin-left: 7px; margin-right: 7px;"}}]]Monday night at the Brevard county courthouse the gallery broke in in raucous applause after Transylvania Commissioners voted for a one-year moratorium that effectively stopped plans for a Biomass plant on private property in Penrose at the airport. 

"They listened to us," said Kevin Glenn, with the anti-plant grass roots group, People for Clean Mountains. "A 12-month moratorium is what we need." 

"We heard nothing from the developer(Renewable Developers Penrose LLC) at all, said Sandy Briggs, who came to support the group. "They had many chances."