PUBLIC MEETING – MAY 4th 7-9pm

LABOR TEMPLE (Hall 8), 2800 1ST AVE. at Broad St.

Two Seattle Steam incinerators threaten to turn downtown Seattle into a Lethal Pollution Zone. One incinerator near Pike Place market is already burning “dirty” waste wood. The huge 50MW, $80M incinerator planned near Pioneer Square would emit killer particle pollution and more than 200,000 tons per year of CO₂.

click HERE to download this as a printable PDF document

Join us to fight both incinerators!! Stop pollution in downtown Seattle so lethal it can kill “on the very day” of exposure. _{Source: American Lung Assn.}

1. Pike Place Market incinerator: Burning wood emits more particulate matter (PM) than coal combustion. _{Source: industry fillings and analyses accepted by EPA}
2. Pioneer Square incinerator: Would emit 166 tons per year of PM. _{Source: DOE EIS, 6/10}
3. Both incinerators: “Short term exposure to particle pollution can kill”. _{Source: ALA State of the Air Report-2008}
4. Both incinerators: PM can kill on the same day as exposure, when PM levels are high. _{Source: ALA}
5. Both incinerators: PM is a health hazard with no safe level of exposure. _{Sources: American Heart Association & EPA}
6. Both incinerators: Health effects of PM: premature death, heart attacks, cancer, lung function changes in children, heart arrhythmias, chronic lung disease, higher ER admissions. _{Source: EPA}
7. Both incinerators: The smallest PM, nano-PM, is the most dangerous PM. Source: AHA
8. Both incinerators: No pollution control device can effectively reduce nano-PM. Sources: Dr. Wm. Sammons, MD, Cambridge, MA, and Air & Waste Management Association.
9. Both incinerators: Nano-PM is completely unregulated. Source: Dr. Wm. Sammons, MD and WA air pollution agencies
10. Both incinerators: Nano-PM is so small it enters our blood directly through our lungs—and attacks our bodies systemically. Source: American Lung Association State of the Air Report-2008
11. Both incinerators: Nano-PM is now being associated with birth defects, lupus, and Alzheimer’s. Sources: Dr. Wm. Sammons, MD, Cambridge, MA and Dr. Graham Cliff, UK
12. Both incinerators: Nano-PM is not stopped by any human body barriers, including the blood-brain barrier and the placenta. Source: Dr. Wm. Sammons, MD, Cambridge, MA
13. Pike Place Market incinerator: Proportionately more most dangerous nano-PM is emitted than PM₁₀ and PM_2.5 at the higher temperatures of modern biomass incinerators. Source: Dr. Wm. Sammons, MD
14. Pike Place Market incinerator: Burning wood emits more CO₂ than burning coal, per unit of energy produced. CO₂ is the leading greenhouse gas causing climate change. Source: Manomet study, Boston, MA, 6/10.
15. Pioneer Square incinerator: 207,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide would be emitted. _{Source: DOE EIS.}
16. Both incinerators: No pollution control devices are available to reduce or eliminate CO₂ emissions.
17. Pike Place Market incinerator: Burning wood emits more nitrogen oxides (NOx) than burning coal, per unit of energy produced, according to industry filings and analyses accepted by the EPA.
18. Pioneer Square incinerator: Would emit 31 tons per year of NOx and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs). _{Source; DOE EIS, 6/10}
19. Both incinerators: NOx and VOCs cause ground level ozone that causes asthma in children. Source: Dr. Wm. Sammons, MD, Cambridge, MA
20. Pike Place Market incinerator: Wood construction debris (“urban wood”) can be contaminated with toxic substances including asbestos, resins, and glues that defy industry attempts at removal.
21. Pike Place Market incinerator: Wood combustion emits dioxin. Dioxin has been shown to produce cancer at far lower concentrations than any of the more than 600 other chemicals EPA has studied. Sources: Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry & EPA.
22. Pioneer Square incinerator: Seattle Steam has been awarded an $18.75M federal grant from the Department of Energy. _{Source: Seattle Steam website and press accounts}
23. Citizen bail-outs of a highly polluting industry make no sense in a time of budget free-fall—or ever.

Join thousands of ordinary folks across the state fiercely fighting incinerators proposed for their towns and cities. The campaigns have seen mass citizen meetings, street protests, confrontational government hearings, newspaper ads, front-page news coverage, and lawsuits filed by top environmental attorneys.

!!MASON COUNTY DEFEATS HUGE INCINERATOR!!

Local citizens have defeated a giant transnational corporation planning a 65MW incinerator for Mason County. Adage announced on March 14, 2011 it was abandoning plans to build the highly polluting plant outside Shelton. The incinerator would have emitted 600,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide pollution and more than 100 tons per year of particulate matter. Furious citizens mounted a petition drive and hired Dave Bricklin of Seattle to lead a legal challenge. Three large incinerators are still planned for the Olympic Peninsula in Port Townsend, Port Angeles and another for Shelton. Lawsuits have been filed against two. A lawsuit is planned against the third.

!!EVERGREEN STATE COLLEGE INCINERATOR DEFEATED!!

Local citizens and students have also defeated a biomass gasification incinerator slated for the campus of Evergreen State College near Olympia. Amid student protests and community uproar, the college announced on April 1, 2011 it was withdrawing plans for the controversial burner. It would have stoked climate change with its carbon dioxide emissions and threatened human lives with particulate matter (PM) pollution.

click HERE to download this as a printable PDF document

Local citizens have defeated a giant transnational corporation planning a 65MW incinerator for Mason County, Washington. Adage announced on March 14, 2011 it was abandoning plans to build the highly polluting plant outside Shelton. The incinerator would have emitted 600,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide pollution and more than 100 tons per year of particulate matter. Citizens mounted a petition drive against the plant and hired attorney Dave Bricklin of Seattle to lead a legal challenge.

This is a sensational victory for us! The Adage incinerator, like all biomass incinerators, would have stoked climate change, rained toxic pollution on the region, and decimated our forests.

BUT, four other large biomass incinerators are planned for the Olympic Peninsula plus the monster 50MW, $80M natural gas incinerator planned for downtown Seattle by Seattle Steam. The Seattle Steam incinerator would emit more than 200,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide and more than 160 tons per year of highly dangerous particulate matter (PM) pollution. The American Lung Association states PM can kill humans on the same day as exposure.

Proposed Washington’s biomass incinerators are bad for forests and climate

Guest columnist Duff Badgley argues that Washington state should stop plans for incinerators that burn biomass, such as waste from logging.

By Duff Badgley

BIOMASS WARS: GREGOIRE/GOLDMARK REPUDIATED BY SCIENTISTS

Washington Biomass Wars are heating up. Citizens across the state are demanding Public Lands Commissioner Peter Goldmark agree to a statewide moratorium on biomass projects like Thurston County imposed in December, 2010.

A chorus of defiant protests are being planned now.  They come as three internationally acclaimed climate scientists debunk pro-biomass burning policies by Washington Governor Gregoire and Goldmark in a public letter saying, “simply declaring biomass power to be carbon neutral does not make it so

Scientists Mark Harmon, Timothy Searchinger and William Moomaw wrote to state legislators on Feb. 2 that state policy “makes it likely that greenhouse gas emissions will increase for many years where biomass replaces or displaces fossil fuels” and “biomass burning emits 150 percent the carbon dioxide of coal and 300-400 percent the carbon dioxide of natural gas…”

“Not only do biomass projects stoke climate change” said Duff Badgley, “they would decimate our forests and kill people.”

Badgley said biomass combustion emits more than twice as much highly toxic particulate matter as coal combustion, and five to 13 times more than natural-gas combustion, according to studies accepted by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

This kind of exposure has been linked by the American Lung Association to a lethal brew of diseases and conditions: cancer, cardiopulmonary diseases including heart attacks, strokes, premature death, increased emergency-room visits and hospital admissions, birth defects, abnormal lung development in children, asthma in children.

The scientists’ Feb. 2 letter states: “…the number and scale of biomass facilities proposed in Washington strongly suggests that new trees will have to be cut to provide fuel for these plants…” There are at least 20 biomass incinerators existing or planned for the state. The Seattle Times on February 8, 2011 published an OP-ED by No Biomass Burn coordinator Duff Badgley that accused Goldmark of promoting biomass policies that “amount to a war on our forests, our climate, and our lives.”
Public outcry against biomass incinerators relentlessly promoted by Goldmark and industry is grabbing headlines in Mason, Thurston, Jefferson and Clallam Counties.

Lawsuits have been filed by citizen and environmental groups to stop three biomass incinerators proposed for the Olympic Peninsula — one of which is a “pilot project” in Port Angeles selected by Goldmark to showcase so-called “green energy.”

Another biomass project pushed by Goldmark is the incinerator slated for the campus of Evergreen State College in Olympia. This project has been stymied by the citizen-driven Thurston County moratorium on all types of biomass incinerators.

In September, 2010, Goldmark and Gregoire sent a letter to EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson arguing that all biomass sources of greenhouse gas pollution in Washington should be exempt from federal regulation.

The letter from Moomaw, Searchinger and Harmon exposes the Gregoire and Goldmark proposal as preposterous and exceedingly dangerous.

Ordinary folks in Gretna, Florida forced ADAGE to cancel its plans for a 55MW biomass incinerator—identical to the one ADAGE proposes for Shelton, WA.

“We had a thoroughly angry citizenry”, said James Maloy, president of Concerned Citizens of Gadsden County. “This is the single reason we beat ADAGE.” Here is a letter Maloy published on his blog site, December 31, 2009. http://floridiansagainstincineratorsindisguise.com/2009/12/31/an-open-letter-to-my-community/

“My only child, Jamie is a 3 and a half year old asthmatic. Although the job opportunity that brought me to this area is located in the City of Tallahassee, my wife and I chose to move to Gadsden County six years ago and invest our life savings in a quiet beautiful parcel of land just outside the city limits of Gretna, a place that we have called home for almost 6 years. I share everyone’s concern about our local and national economies, and I understand that an announcement any community about hundreds of jobs and millions in tax revenue is indeed good news.

Since the project was announced, I have been educating myself about the proposed facility to be constructed by ADAGE, LLC that has been labeled as “Clean, Green and Renewable”. What I have learned since that day has left me completely disturbed. The play yard that I built for my asthmatic son is 1.9 miles from the proposed Gretna Biomass Incinerator. His pre-school is 3 miles away. Gretna Elementary is 1 mile away. There are 5 schools within 4 miles of this proposed facility. There is a prison directly across the street that has an inmate population of 1,541 women – over 1,300 of those women are of childbearing age.

I do not believe that any of our elected county, city officials or local leaders would knowingly place these citizens and their children at risk, but the seemingly unanimous political support leads me to believe that a well rounded presentation of the facts have not been presented to them.

Although the application for an air permit to construct for the 50MW Gretna Biomass Incinerator project has not yet been submitted by ADAGE, LLC to the Florida Department of Environmental Protection,  I have read both the initial and revised applications for their 50MW Hamilton County Biomass Incinerator currently under evaluation.

I have also read hundreds of pages of information provided to me by groups and individuals who have researched, gathered, and written the documentation that has been instrumental in forming recent regulatory and organizational opposition to Biomass Incinerators. I not only “feel” that this project “may be detrimental to our health”, I am “certain” of it.

Here are a few facts that have been left out of the discussion thus far:

“On October 14, 2009, the Hampden County Medical Society (MA) published formal opposition to the construction of the Russell (MA) 50 MW wood burning biomass plant on the grounds that it presents an unacceptable public health risk. Similarly, on July 14, 2006, the American Lung Association of Massachusetts stated “serious concerns” about the “significant impact of this project [Russell Biomass wood burning plant] on air quality”.  The Florida Medical Association issued Resolution 08-21 urging the State of Florida to adopt policies to minimize the approval of new incinerators such as biomass burners. The Oregon Chapter of the American Lung Association has also come out against biomass combustion, as has the Capital Regional Medical Association in Tallahassee, Florida . These are only some of the public statements from professionals around the country documenting biomass burning and renewable energy incinerators as a source of a new and growing public health threat.”

The most vulnerable among us are especially at risk. Our children, the elderly and those with already chronic health conditions will suffer the consequences and there is an overwhelming amount of scientific and medical research that factually supports this assertion and disputes many of the claims made in favor of Biomass Incinerators. I am “certain” that due to my son’s chronic respiratory condition, we will have to make a choice between remaining silent, being forced from our home and community or knowingly and willingly place my son’s life in jeopardy. I am “certain” that we are not the only family in this community who will be forced to make the same difficult decision.

I strongly urge you, our elected officials, local leaders, economic development organizations and every citizen in this county to take the time to educate yourselves before an irreversible error is made.— James E. Maloy, Jr.”

Adage’s proposed incinerator will rain toxic pollutants on the people of Shelton and Mason County. ADAGE’s permit application for a biomass incinerator proposed for Hamilton County, Florida—a plant identical to the one proposed for Shelton—lists 52 Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs) that would be emitted from their incinerator. Lethal levels of particulate matter (PM) are listed, as well as dioxin, arsenic, mercury, lead, carbon monoxide, chloroform, formaldehyde, and sulfurous acid.

Air pollution controls will not protect us from lethal levels of Particulate Matter (PM) that can kill from a single exposure. Emissions of the smallest and possibly most dangerous PM are completely unregulated. Existing regulations for emissions of the next smallest category of PM are not sufficiently “stringent” to prevent “adverse cardiovascular effects”, according to the American Heart Association.

American Lung Association State of the Air – 2008 Report

(excerpts)

Ozone and particle pollution are the most widespread air pollutants—and among the most dangerous. Recent research has revealed new insights into how they can harm the body—including taking the lives of infants and altering the lungs of children.

Short-term Exposure Can Be Deadly

First and foremost, short-term exposure to particle pollution can kill.

Deaths can occur on the very day that particle levels are high, or within one to two months afterward. Particle pollution does not just make people die a few days earlier than they might otherwise—these are deaths that would not have occurred if the air were cleaner.

What Else Can Particles Do to Your Health?

Particle pollution diminishes lung function, causes greater use of asthma medications and increased rates of school absenteeism, emergency room visits and hospital admissions.

Other adverse effects can be coughing, wheezing, cardiac arrhythmias and heart attacks. According to the findings from some of the latest studies, short-term increases in particle pollution have been linked to:

1. death from respiratory and cardiovascular causes, including strokes;
2. increased mortality in infants and young children;
3. increased numbers of heart attacks, especially among the elderly and in people with heart conditions;
4. inflammation of lung tissue in young, healthy adults;
5. increased hospitalization for cardiovascular disease, including     strokes and congestive heart failure;
6. increased emergency room visits for patients suffering from acute     respiratory ailments;
7. increased hospitalization for asthma among children;
8. increased severity of asthma attacks in children;

What Is Particle Pollution?

Ever look at dirty truck exhaust? The dirty, smoky part of that stream of exhaust is made of particle pollution.

Particle pollution refers to a mix of very tiny solid and liquid particles that are in the air we breathe. Some are one-tenth the diameter of a strand of hair. Some are so small they can only be seen with an electron microscope. Because of their size, you can’t see the individual particles.

Our natural defenses help us to cough or sneeze larger particles out of our bodies. But those defenses don’t keep out smaller particles, those that are about one-seventh the diameter of a single human hair. These particles get trapped in the lungs, while the smallest are so minute that they can pass through the lungs into the blood stream, just like the essential oxygen molecules we need to survive.

Researchers categorize particles according to size, grouping them as coarse, fine and ultrafine. (1) Coarse particles fall between 2.5 microns and 10 microns in diameter and are called PM10-2.5. (2) Fine particles are 2.5 microns in diameter or smaller and are called PM2.5. (3) Ultrafine particles are smaller than 0.1 micron in diameter and are small enough to pass through the lung tissue into the blood stream, circulating like the oxygen molecules themselves. No matter what the size, particles can be harmful to your health.

Particle pollution can damage the body in ways similar to cigarette smoking. A recent review of the research on how particles cause harm found that the body responds to particles in similar ways to its response to cigarette smoke. These findings help explain why particle pollution can cause heart attacks and strokes.

McNeil biomass incinerator is the worst polluter in Vermont

“NO!” TO ADAGE INCINERATOR IN SHELTON

1-ADAGE incinerator would kill us and make us sick in Shelton & Mason County.

2-ADAGE incinerator would rain toxic pollutants on our children and community.

• Killer Particulate Matter (PM) • Dioxin • Arsenic •Mercury •Lead

•Carbon monoxide •Chloroform • Formaldehyde •  Sulfurous acid

3-ADAGE incinerator would mean up to 360 heavy truck trips per day, tearing up roads at taxpayer expense.

4-ADAGE incinerator would burn more than one ton of wood per minute, consuming whole trees and ripping apart our forests.

5-ADAGE incinerator would suck an estimated 125,000 gallons of water per day from an unidentified source and dump an estimated 125,000 gallons of contaminated water per day somewhere near Oakland Bay.

6-ADAGE incinerator would cost taxpayers millions of dollars in “infrastructure improvements” and tax giveaways.

CITIZENS JUST BEAT ADAGE IN FLORIDA! WE CAN BEAT ADAGE HERE!

[ download this post as a  reprintable flier ]

By GEORGE WUERTHNER

After the Smurfit-Stone Container Corp.’s linerboard plant in Missoula Montana announced that it was closing permanently, there have been many people including Montana Governor Switzer, Missoula mayor and Senator Jon Tester, among others who advocate turning the mill into a biomass energy plant. Northwestern Energy, a company which has expressed interest in using the plant for energy production has already indicated that it would expect more wood from national forests to make the plant economically viable.

The Smurfit Stone conversion to biomass is not alone. There has been a spade of new proposals for new wood burning biomass energy plants sprouting across the country like mushrooms after a rain. Currently there are plans and/or proposals for new biomass power plants in Maine, Vermont, Pennsylvania, Florida, California, Idaho, Oregon and elsewhere. In every instance, these plants are being promoted as “green” technology.

Part of the reason for this “boom” is that taxpayers are providing substantial financial incentives, including tax breaks, government grants, and loan guarantees. The rationale for these taxpayer subsidies is the presumption that biomass is “green” energy. But like other “quick fixes” there has been very little serious scrutiny of biomass real costs and environmental impacts. Whether commercial biomass is a viable alternative to traditional fossil fuels can be questioned.

Before I get into this discussion, I want to state right up front, that coal and other fossil fuels that now provide much of our electrical energy need to be reduced and effectively replaced. But biomass energy is not the way to accomplish this end goal.

BIOMASS BURNING IS POLLUTION

First and foremost, biomass burning isn’t green. Burning wood produces huge amounts of pollution. Especially in valleys like Missoula where temperature inversions are common, pollution from a biomass burner will be the source of numerous health ailments. Because of the air pollution and human health concerns, the Oregon Chapter of the American Lung Association, the Massachusetts Medical Society and the Florida Medical Association, have all established policies opposing large-scale biomass plants.

The reason for this medical concern is that even with the best pollution control devises, biomass energy is extremely dirty. For instance, one of the biggest biomass burners now in operation, the McNeil biomass plant in Burlington, Vermont is the number one pollution source in the state, emitting 79 classified pollutants. Biomass releases dioxins, and as much particulates as coal burning, plus carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, sulfur dioxide, and contribute to ozone formation.

BIOMASS GENERATES MORE CARBON THAN COAL

Besides ignoring the human health aspects of large scale biomass burning, assertions that biomass energy is “green” is a misnomer. Wood burning generates 50% more carbon dioxide than coal. This is largely a factor of the lower heat content in wood which means to generate the same amount of megawatts requires burning far more wood than coal to achieve the same amount of electricity. Biomass burning releases about 3,300 pounds of carbon dioxide per megawatt, while coal releases 2,100 pounds.

BIOMASS IS NOT CARBON NEUTRAL

Proponents of biomass often claim that biomass is “carbon neutral.” The reasoning behind this claim is the fact that growing trees will sequester carbon. On the surface this may make sense, however, it ignores that the it takes decades for new forest growth to capture the carbon that is released by trees consumed in a biomass burner. And that assumes there will be new trees growing—something that one can’t assume because climate change could make many places less suitable for forest growth. In an era of climate change, the assumption that a forest cut will grow back on the same site is optimistic at best.

The problem for humanity is that we need to reduce large scale carbon emissions now, not in 50 or 100 years as forests sequester carbon over decades.

BIOMASS ENERGY IS INEFFICIENT

Wood is not nearly as concentrated a heat source as coal, gas, oil, or any other fossil fuel. Most biomass energy operations are only able to capture 20-25% of the latent energy by burning wood. That means one needs to gather and burn more wood to get the same energy value as a more concentrated fuel like coal. That is not to suggest that coal is a good alternative, rather wood is a worse alternative. Especially when you consider the energy used to gather the rather dispersed source of wood and the energy costs of trucking it to a central energy plant. If the entire carbon footprint of wood is considered, biomass creates far more CO2 with far less energy output than other energy sources.

The McNeil Biomass Plant in Burlington Vermont seldom runs full time because wood, even with all the subsidies (and Vermonters made huge and repeated subsidies to the plant—not counting the “hidden subsidies” like air pollution) wood energy can’t compete with other energy sources, even in the Northeast where energy costs are among the highest in the nation. Even though the plant was also retrofitted so it could burn natural gas to increase its competitiveness with other energy sources, the plant still does not operate competitively. It is generally is only used to off- set peak energy loads.

One could argue, of course, that other energy sources like coal are greatly subsidized as well, especially if all environmental costs were considered. But at the very least, all energy sources must be “standardized” so that consumers can make informed decisions about energy—and biomass energy appears to be no more green than other energy sources.

BIOMASS SANITIZES AND MINES OUR FORESTS

The dispersed nature of wood as a fuel source combined with its low energy value means any sizeable energy plant must burn a lot of wood. For instance, the McNeil 50 megawatt biomass plant in Burlington, Vermont would require roughly 32,500 acres of forest each year if running at near full capacity and entirely on wood. Wood for the McNeil Plant is trucked and even shipped on trains from as far away as Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Quebec and Maine.

Biomass proponents often suggest that wood as a consequence of forest thinning to improve “forest health” (logging a forest to improve health of a forest ecosystem is an oxymoron.) will provide the fuel for plant operations. For instance, one of the assumptions of Senator Tester’s Montana Forest Jobs bill is that thinned forests will provide a ready source of biomass for energy production. But in many cases, there are limits on the economic viability of trucking wood any distance to a central energy plant. Again without huge subsidies, this simply does not make economic sense. Biomass forest is even worse for forest ecosystems than clear-cutting. Biomass energy tends to utilize the entire tree, including the bole, crown, and branches. This robs a forest of nutrients, and disrupts energy cycles.

Worse yet, such biomass removal ignores the important role of dead trees to sustain the forest ecosystems. Dead trees are not a “wasted” resource. They provide home and food for thousands of species, including 45% of all bird species in the Nation. Dead trees that fall to the ground are used by insects, small mammals, amphibians and reptiles for shelter and even potentially food. Dead trees that fall into streams are important physical components of aquatic ecosystems and provide critical habitat for many fish and other aquatic species. Removal of dead wood is mining the forest. Keep in mind that logging activities are not benign. Logging typically requires some kind of access, often roads which are a major source of sedimentation in streams, and disrupt natural subsurface water flow. Logging can disturb sensitive wildlife like grizzly bear and even elk are known to abandon locations with active logging. Logging can spread weeds. And finally since large amounts of forest carbon are actually tied up in the soils, soil disturbance from logging is especially damaging, often releasing substantial additional amounts of carbon over and above what is released up a smoke stack.

BIOMASS ENERGY USES LARGE AMOUNTS OF WATER

A large-scale biomass plant (50 MW) uses close to a million gallons of water a day for cooling. Most of that water is lost from the watershed since approximately 85% is lost as steam. Water channeled back into a river or stream typically has a pollution cost as well, including higher water temperatures that negatively impact fisheries, especially trout. Since cooling need is greatest in warm weather, removal of water from rivers occurs just when flows are lowest, and fish are most susceptible to temperature stress.

BIOMASS ENERGY SAPS FUNDS FROM OTHER TRULY GREEN ENERGY SOURCES LIKE SOLAR

Since biomass energy is eligible for state renewable portfolio standards (RPS), it has captured the bulk of funding intended to move the country away from fossil fuels. For example, in Vermont, 90% of the RPS is from “smokestack” sources—mostly biomass incineration. This pattern holds throughout many other parts of the country. Biomass energy is thus burning up funds that could and should be going into other energy programs like energy conservation, solar and insulation of buildings.

PUBLIC FORESTS WILL BE LOGGED FOR BIOMASS ENERGY

Many of the climate bills now circulating in Congress, as well as Montana Senator Jon Tester’s Montana Jobs and Wilderness bill target public forests. Some of these proposals even include roadless lands and proposed wilderness as a source for wood biomass. One federal study suggests that 368 million tons of wood could be removed from our national forests every year—of course this study did not include the ecological costs that physical removal of this much would have on forest ecosystems.

The Biomass Crop Assistance Program, or BCAP, which was quietly put into the 2008 farm bill has so far given away more than a half billion dollars in a matching payment program for businesses that cut and collect biomass from national forests and Bureau of Land Management lands. And according to a recent Washington Post story, the Obama administration has already sent $23 million to biomass energy companies, and is poised to send another half billion.

And it is not only federal forests that are in jeopardy. Many states are eyeing their own state forests for biomass energy. For instance, Maine recently unveiled a new plan known as the Great Maine Forest Initiative which will pay timber companies to grow trees for biomass energy.

JOB LOSSES

Ironically one of the main justifications for biomass energy is the creation of jobs, yet the wood biomass rush is having unintended consequences for other forest products industries. Companies that rely upon surplus wood chips to produce fiberboard, cabinet makers, and furniture are scrambling to find wood fiber for their products. Considering that these industries are secondary producers of products, the biomass rush could threaten more jobs than it may create.

BOTTOM LINE

Large scale wood biomass energy is neither green, nor truly economical. It is also not ecologically sustainable and jeopardizes our forest ecosystems. It is a distraction that funnels funds and attention away from other more truly worthwhile energy options, in particular, the need for a massive energy conservation program, and changes in our lifestyles that will in the end provide truly green alternatives to coal and other fossil fuels.

George Wuerthner is a wildlife biologist and a former Montana hunting guide. His latest book is Plundering Appalachia.