From outer space, a new dilemma for old-growth forests

By LES BLUMENTHAL - McClatchy Newspapers

Published Mon, Aug 30, 2010 08:09 AM

WASHINGTON A new study using laser pulses shot from satellites has found that the world's tallest forests are those along the Pacific Northwest coast.

Though the findings shouldn't shock anyone who grew up in the region, they offer another indication of how important these ancient trees eventually could become.

The temperate forests of Douglas fir, Western hemlock, redwoods and sequoias that stretch from northern California into British Columbia easily reach an average height of more than 131 feet. That's taller than the boreal forests of northern Canada and Eurasia, tropical rainforests and the broadleaf forests common in much of the United States and Europe. The only forests that come close are in Southeast Asia, along the southern rim of the Himalayas and in Indonesia, Malaysia and Laos.

As scientists try to unravel the mystery of missing carbon, increasing attention is focused on these forests.
From 15 percent to 30 percent of the 7 billion tons of carbon that are released globally every year is unaccounted for, government scientists say. About 3 billion tons remain in the atmosphere, and the oceans absorb 2 billion tons. Vegetation, including the forests, probably absorbs the remaining 1 billion to 2 billion tons, but no one knows for sure how much and where.

Scientists suspect that the forests with the biggest trees store the most carbon, and the Northwest forests are probably among the largest carbon sinks in the world. However, they also say that while slower-growing older trees store more carbon, younger trees also absorb more carbon as they grow rapidly.

That sets up a debate about how forests should be managed, particularly whether older trees should be cut to make way for younger ones or whether they should be protected to store the carbon they contain.

"It's a hot topic," said Elaine Oneil, a research scientist at the University of Washington's School of Forest Resources and the executive director of a consortium that's been studying the issue. "We can't afford a one-size-fits-all solution. We can't lock it all up, and it's not feasible to cut it all for 2-by-4s."

Ongoing studies using the satellites and lasers may provide valuable information on how fast the forests are growing and how much carbon they store.

"All of the remote sensing is providing us with the ability to monitor changes in the environment in a way you might not see on the ground," said Michael Lefsky, an assistant professor in the department of forest, rangeland and watershed stewardship at Colorado State University. "We are expecting under global warming that the productivity of the forests will change."


Lefsky used data from a laser technology called LIDAR that's capable of "capturing vertical slices" of surface features on Earth from satellites. It's the same technology that geologists are using to map earthquake faults in western Washington state.

With the help of computers, Lefsky put together a global forest height map based on data from 250 million laser pulses collected during a seven-year period.

LIDAR measures the height of forest canopies by shooting laser pulses and measuring how much longer it takes for them to bounce back from the surface than from the top of the forest canopy. The pulses can penetrate through the canopy to the ground.

"It's like an echo," said Lefsky, whose findings were published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Overall, LIDAR offered direct measurements of only 2.4 percent of the Earth's forested surfaces.

"This is really just a first draft and it will certainly be refined in the future," he said.

Lefsky, who previously had done forest research at Oregon State University, said he wasn't surprised that the temperate conifer forests of the Northwest coast had the tallest canopies. While the Northwest forests include the world's tallest trees - redwoods and sequoias - they represent only a small fraction of the region's timberlands, he said, but there are thousands of acres of other tall trees.

In contrast to the Northwest stands, the boreal forests of mostly spruce, fir, pine and larch have canopies that are typically less than 66 feet tall. Relatively undisturbed tropical rain forests have canopies of 82 feet, and the broadleaf forests of oak, beech and birch in much of the U.S. and Europe have roughly the same canopy height.

Trees absorb carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, and convert it using water into sugar and oxygen. Much of the sugar becomes cellulose, the key ingredient in wood. From 45 percent to 50 percent of a tree's wood is carbon-based.

The trees and soil in national forests in Washington state, Oregon and southeast Alaska store 10.8 billion tons of carbon, according to a Wilderness Society analysis of U.S. Forest Service data earlier this year.
The analysis also found that of the 120 national forests, the 10 with the highest carbon density were in Washington, Oregon and southeast Alaska.

Oneil's group, the Consortium for Research on Renewable Industrial Materials, suggests that rather than leaving all the tall trees in place, where they could be susceptible to bugs and fires, they be cut and used for wood products such as building materials.

The carbon in those wood products would be stored permanently and their use would reduce the need to manufacture cement and steel, a process that produces greenhouse gases. In addition, the leftovers from milling the logs, such as chips and sawdust, can be used for everything from bark mulch to biofuel for power plants.

Carbon absorption by trees in the Northwest slows when they reach 30 to 70 years of age, Oneil said. By no means, Oneil said, is her group arguing that all the old-growth forests in the Northwest be cut. The stands have other important uses, such as providing habitat for wildlife and recreational opportunities, she said. However, she suggested that the forests, particularly on private lands, could be managed to absorb even more carbon.

"If you don't pick the carrots, you can't plant the next crop," she said.

Environmentalists said cutting the tall forests wasn't the answer, because that could release up to 60 percent of the carbon that was stored in trees and the soil.

"We need to preserve the old growth for existing (carbon) storage," said Mike Anderson, a senior resource analyst with The Wilderness Society in Seattle. Anderson didn't rule out using private lands to increase carbon storage.
  

Activist ‘Green’ Lawyers Billing U.S. Millions in Fraudulent Attorney Fees

Posted By Richard Pollock On March 4, 2010 @ 9:52 am
Pajamas Media ~ pajamasmedia.com

Without any oversight, accounting, or transparency, environmental activist groups have surreptitiously received at least $37 million from the federal government for questionable “attorney fees.” The lawsuits they received compensation for had nothing to do with environmental protection or improvement.

The activist groups have generated huge revenue streams via the obscure Equal Access to Justice Act. Congressional sources claim the groups are billing for “cookie cutter” lawsuits — they file the same petitions to multiple agencies on procedural grounds, and under the Act, they file for attorney fees even if they do not win the case. Since 1995, the federal government has neither tracked nor accounted for any of these attorney fee payments.

Nine national environmental activist groups alone have filed more than 3,300 suits, every single one seeking attorney fees. The groups have also charged as much as $650 per hour (a federal statutory cap usually limits attorney fees to $125 per hour).

In well over half of the cases, there was no court judgment in the environmental groups’ favor. In all cases, whether there was any possible environmental benefit from the litigation is highly questionable. Most cases were simply based upon an alleged failure to comply with a deadline or to follow a procedure.

A whistleblower who was employed for 30 years by the U.S. Forest Service told Pajamas Media:

Some organizations have built a business doing this and attacking the agencies on process, and then getting “reimbursed.”

This week a bipartisan group of congressional members introduced legislation to end the secrecy of the payments and force the government to open up the records to show exactly how much has been paid to the groups and the questionable attorney fees. The legislation was sponsored by Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyoming),  Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD), and Rep. Rob Bishop (R-Utah).

Congressional sources have said the disclosure was necessary to determine the extent of fraud and abuse. The $37 million ^[1] is considered only a fraction of what has been paid out to the activist groups.

“For too long, taxpayers have unwittingly served as the financiers of the environmental litigation industry,” Rep. Bishop, who also is the chairman of the Congressional Western Caucus, said.

Rep. Herseth Sandlin remarked: “Simply put, this legislation is about ensuring good and open government.”

“It’s time to shine some light [on the program],” explained Rep. Lummis, who said the groups have created an industry that “supports their ‘stop everything’ agenda.”

The $37 million figure is considered low. It includes less than a dozen groups and only accounts for cases in 19 states and the District of Columbia. There are hundreds of eco-activist groups in the United States.

According to the whistleblower who served in the U.S. Forest Service, environmental activist groups typically file identical lawsuits to multiple agencies on procedural grounds, such as a missed deadline.

The identity of the huge revenue stream was established by the Western Legacy Alliance ^[2] (“WLA”), along with Wyoming-based attorney Karen Budd-Falen. Western Legacy Alliance was founded in 2008 by ranchers and resource providers who raise beef and lamb on public lands of the West. What they found was astounding.

Examining court records in 19 states and in the District of Columbia, the total amount paid to less than a dozen environmental groups exceeded $37 million. “This is just the tip of the iceberg,” says Budd-Falen. “We believe when the curtain is raised we’ll be talking about radical environmental groups bilking the taxpayer for hundreds of millions of dollars, all allegedly for ‘reimbursement for attorney fees.’  And what is even more maddening is that these groups are claiming that they are protecting the environment with all this litigation when not one dime of this money goes to projects that impact anything on-the-ground related to the environment.  It just goes to more litigation to get more attorney fees to file more litigation.”

The whistleblower, speaking anonymously, told Pajamas Media the payments to the activists groups were “quite astronomical.”  The former government agent was a line officer in a high-ranking position. That whistleblower added that the filings by the radical groups often were “canned” petitions that contained little research. In this way, environmental groups could pepper government agencies with a flood of lawsuits without much work.

“They will send a myriad of lawsuits across the bow to try to stop a number of projects or programs and then they hopefully will score with one or two,” he said. He saw a lot of the activist lawsuit filings because he had been attached both to the Forest Service’s Washington headquarters and to its field offices. “Then they will send in bills that are quite frankly, quite astronomical compared to the actual work they had to do to file an actual lawsuit.  Many of the lawsuits are filed under a lot of canned material, yet the hours and rates that they charge were quite high.”

Here is a sampling of the number of assembly line “lawsuits” filed between 2000 and 2009 that have been painstakingly identified by the Western Legacy Alliance and Budd-Falen. Activist group Western Watersheds Project ^[3] filed 91 lawsuits in the federal district courts; Forest Guardians (now known as WildEarth Guardians ^[4]) filed 180 lawsuits; the Center for Biological Diversity ^[5] (CBD) filed at 409 suits; the Wilderness Society ^[6] filed 149 lawsuits; the National Wildlife Federation ^[7] filed 427 lawsuits; and the Sierra Club ^[8] filed 983 lawsuits.  These numbers do not include administrative appeals or notices of intent to sue.

Even local or regional environmental groups have figured out ways to turn on the taxpayer spigot. WLA found the Idaho Conservation League ^[9] filed 72 lawsuits and the Oregon Natural Desert Association ^[10] filed 50. The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance filed 88 lawsuits. At last count, just eight local groups in nine Western states have filed nearly 1,600 lawsuits against the federal government.

On the national level, over the last decade nine national environmental groups have filed 3,300 cases against the federal government. As is usual, the vast majority of the cases deal with the alleged procedural failings of federal agencies, not with substance or science.

Said the Forest Service officer: “A lot of times they will sue on process, and not on substance. And substance means what difference does it mean for the resource, or what’s going in on the ground? A lot of times, it will be a process lawsuit and a lot of times the agency either missed something. … The bottom line is many, many times, when you look at the results on the ground, it [the environmental group winning the litigation] would have made very little difference.”

Karen Budd-Falen said ^[11] that the cases amounted to a ripoff of taxpayers and rewarded radical groups with millions of dollars.  “Although those of us involved in protecting property rights and land use in the West were aware that radical groups were getting exorbitant fees simply be filing litigation against the government, we had no idea of the magnitude of the problem.”

Budd-Falen highlighted one case that typifies the gravy train that has flowed to environmental groups. In 2009, the Earthjustice Legal Foundation represented the Defenders of Wildlife, the Sierra Club, the Wilderness Society, and the Vermont Natural Resources Council in a case dealing with the process used by the Forest Service to adopt some regulations. The Earthjustice Legal Foundation filed for attorney fees for that single case that took only one year and three months to complete.

The same suit was filed by the Western Environmental Law Center on behalf of other environmental groups. The seven total attorneys who worked on the case billed the federal government $479,242. They charged between $300 to $650 per hour, far above the statuary federal cap of $125. The case was resolved at the district court level and the federal government did not appeal.

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) also files a significant amount of litigation and receives lucrative attorney fees. In Washington State Federal District Court alone, CBD received attorney fees totaling $941,000 for only six cases. In the District of Columbia, it received more than $1 million in fees.

Fourteen groups identified as recipients of the Act’s funding are: the Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, Colorado Environmental Coalition, Forest Guardians, National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council, Western Watersheds Project, Defenders of Wildlife, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, WildEarth, Oregon Natural Desert Association, Oregon Wild, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, and Wyoming Outdoor Council.

One of the fourteen groups, the Center for Biological Diversity, called the two Republicans and one Democrat “rabid right-wingers” and said that the charges of abuse was “patently false and patently ridiculous,” according to Bill Snape, senior council for CBD ^[12].

Another study from Virginia Tech University discovered similar findings as a result of a comprehensive Freedom of Information Act request to five federal agencies. The Virginia Tech study also revealed that two of the agencies could provide absolutely no data on the Act’s payments.

Environmental organizations are among the most financially prosperous non-profits in the country.  The Sierra Club alone in 2007 reported its total worth as $56.6 million. According to 2007 Internal Revenue Service records, the top ten environmental presidents receive as much as a half million dollars a year in annual compensation. Fred Krupp, the president of the Environmental Defense Fund, Inc reported $492,000 in executive compensation in 2007. The top ten highest grossing environmental executives all received at least $308,000 in compensation ^[13].

Environmental activist groups also have been among the most influential in throwing around political money ^[14]. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, between 2000 and this year activist environmental political action committees have given $3.4 million in campaign contributions to candidates for federal office. About 87% of the money went to Democrats.

_____________________________________________________

Article printed from Pajamas Media: http://pajamasmedia.com

URL to article: http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/breaking-activist-green-lawyers-billing-u-s-millions-in-fraudulent-attorney-fees/

URLs in this post:

[1] $37 million: http://pajamasmedia.comwww.westernlegacyalliance.org/images/pdf/master_attorneys_fees_list_12-14-09

[2] the Western Legacy Alliance: http://pajamasmedia.comwww.westernlegacyalliance.org/eajaabuse

[3] Western Watersheds Project: http://www.westernwatersheds.org/

[4] WildEarth Guardians: http://www.wildearthguardians.org/

[5] Center for Biological Diversity: http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/

[6] Wilderness Society: http://wilderness.org/

[7] National Wildlife Federation: http://www.nwf.org/

[8] Sierra Club: http://www.sierraclub.org/

[9] Idaho Conservation League: http://www.idahoconservation.org/

[10] Oregon Natural Desert Association: http://onda.org/

[11] said: http://www.buddfalen.com

[12] Bill Snape, senior council for CBD: http://www.eenews.net/EEDaily/2010/03/03

[13] at least $308,000 in compensation: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/blogs/beltway-confidential/Saving-the-planet-is-a-profitable-enterprise-60299737.html

[14] political money: http://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/industry.php?txt=Q11&cycle=2010

   

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Vilsack Highlights Report Showing Threats to Private Forested Lands

USDA News Release

Release No. 0401.10
Contact: Office of Communications (202) 720-4623

Forest Service study supports "All Lands" approach outlined by Vilsack last year


WASHINGTON, August 11, 2010 – Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today held a national conference call to highlight a USDA Forest Service report entitled Private Forests, Public Benefits, showing that privately held forests in the U.S. are under substantial stress from development and fragmentation and that increased housing density in forests will exacerbate other threats to forests from wildfire, insects, pathogens and pollution. These threats to the important goods and services provided by privately owned forests, which make up 56 percent of all forested lands, emphasize the importance of the collaborative, cross-boundary approach to conserving and restoring our forests as laid out by Secretary Vilsack in a major address last year.

"Americans rely on their forests for a wide range of social, environmental and economic benefits, including clean water, wood products, habitat for wildlife, and outdoor recreation," said Vilsack. "The Private Forests, Public Benefits report shows that now, more than ever, we need to take an 'all lands' approach to managing our nation's forests, whether they are national forests or under the stewardship of state or private entities."

Private Forests, Public Benefits is one of a series of reports prepared by the "Forests on the Edge" project. This report uses geographic information systems to identify watersheds where private forests contribute the greatest amount of goods and services in terms of clean water, timber, and wildlife habitat; and where these goods and services are most at risk from increased housing density as well as insect pests and disease, wildfire, and air pollution.

Some of the report's key findings include:

* Housing density will increase on more than 57 million acres of America's private forests between 2000 and 2030.
* Up to 75 percent of the private forests in many regions are predicted to experience a substantial increase in housing density.
* Private forests that play a critical role in supplying our nation with clean water resources, and the timber we need to build homes and communities across the country will be threatened.
* A number of species including the already-endangered Florida panther and the grizzly bear are also expected to be put at risk because of loss of forested land.

The study also identifies areas where other threats to forests – like fire, pollution and disease – will be made much worse as a result of forest loss. For instance, as houses encroach on forests, the risks to human life and property from fire increase as do the costs of fire management and suppression.

The Forests on the Edge project seeks to increase public awareness of the importance of conserving America's private forests; create tools for strategic planning; and provide Congress and Forest Service partners with better information on the values of and challenges facing our nation's open space. To obtain maps or a copy of Private Forests, Public Benefits go to: http://www.fs.fed.us/openspace/fote/index.html.

The mission of the USDA Forest Service is to sustain the health, diversity, and productivity of the Nation's forests and grasslands to meet the needs of present and future generations. The Agency manages 193 million acres of public land, provides assistance to State and private landowners, and maintains the largest forestry research organization in the world.

#

Ag secretary lends ear to landowners

By Shira Schoenberg
08/10/2010
Concord
http://www.concordmonitor.com

Forestry workers cite industry issues

Joseph Cartwright owns 430 acres in Alstead. He has cut timber and sold firewood, but he said he can't make a living off his land.

"Before you cut a tree, you give 35 percent to government agencies," Cartwright said, citing a litany of federal and state taxes. "If you can correct that so you make money owning land, the conservation problem will solve itself."

Cartwright was one of nearly 300 people - including advocates, landowners and foresters - who attended a listening session with U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack and U.S. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen yesterday at the Grappone Conference Center in Concord.

Since June, senior administration officials have held 18 listening sessions around the country as part of President Obama's "America's Great Outdoors" initiative. The goal of the initiative is to develop a federal plan for conserving land, both through government and private groups, and for encouraging Americans to spend time outdoors. The New Hampshire session was the only one that has focused on preserving private working forests.

State officials said New Hampshire is the second most forested state in the country, after Maine, with 84 percent of state land covered by forests. "Our working forest is part of the fabric of the state," Shaheen said.

In recent years, the state has had a checkered history of supporting conservation through the Land and Community Heritage Investment Program, or LCHIP. A recent bill filling the state budget hole took $1.5 million from LCHIP to balance the budget - bringing the total amount of money that the state has diverted from the fund to $4.5 million, according to the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests.

Nonetheless, Gov. John Lynch said yesterday that the state has done a good job of both protecting forests and moving toward renewable energy sources, such as timber and other biomass.

"We have a proud tradition of ensuring we have a balance between protecting our forests and ensuring conservation, and appropriately using them for our economy," Lynch said.


Vital resources

On a federal level, Shaheen and Vilsack both said they recognize the importance of an outdoor recreation industry that brings New Hampshire an estimated $4 billion a year in retail sales revenue.

Vilsack said forests are vital as a source of clean water and as a home to wildlife, and are also an asset in fighting climate change. Forests provide opportunities for hunting, fishing and hiking, and give jobs to people in rural communities.

"Forests are worth as much as $730 billion to the nation's economy," Vilsack said. "Conserving forests is not something we should choose to do, it's something we must do."

Vilsack said the U.S. Department of Agriculture is putting new emphasis on conserving lands across ownership boundaries, including federal and state lands in addition to the 56 percent of the country's forests that are on private property. But he said private lands also face significant dangers of development - including many in New Hampshire.

"There's an implication for water quality, at-risk species, timber production and forest health," Vilsack said. "Urban development exacerbates each threat."

During a panel discussion, eight conservation activists, businesspeople and landowners, highlighted the difficulties of preserving land.

New Hampshire State Forester Brad Simpkins said the state and municipalities need to do a better job of making sure that land-use regulations and tax structures make it easier, not harder, to conserve land. The process of conserving land should also be made smoother.

"We need to ensure we don't inadvertently create barriers for people to keep forests as forests," Simpkins said.

Dave Tellman, a Whitefield landowner and past president of the New Hampshire Timber Landowners Association, said there needs to be government funding for conservation easements. In the North Country, Tellman said, there are farmers with large pieces of property that have been in their families for generations. But in order to get a conservation easement, they would need to pay a large amount of money to survey their land and get a clearer title.

"People want to donate, but developers are standing outside the door," Tellman said. "If it looks like you will have to spend money to donate, you aren't going to donate."

In some cases, the biggest problem for landowners is finding markets for their products. Tellman said that in the 1990s, when all the state's mills were running, pulp sold for $6 to $9 a ton. Over the last two years, there has been no pulp market and fuel chips are going for $3 a ton. Last week, Tellman said he signed a contract for $1 a ton.

"There's not a lot of point in harvesting at $1 a ton," Tellman said. "The resources are out there, but unless landowners are compensated fairly for the resources, they may stay in the woods."

Tom and Laurel Martin, a retired couple who own a 111-acre tree farm in Salisbury, told the Monitor they logged their land a couple of years ago, and the loggers had trouble selling the wood. At one point, they had to stop logging because the mill would not take a certain type of wood.

The Martins, who allow hunting on their property and have public trails, have had other problems as well. Sometimes, ATV drivers leave muddy ruts on their property. Once, a person in a pickup truck knocked over 30 feet of corn on property the Martins rent to a corn farmer.

"I put a sign up saying 'no vehicles,' " Tom Martin said. "I didn't say please."


Clean energy

Peter Stein of Lyme Timber Co. said during the panel discussion that some of the marketing problems could be solved through creating new markets - for example, finding ways to pay landowners for woody biomass. Walter Graff, vice president of the Appalachian Mountain Club, said the government could also do more with giving private landowners incentives to allow public access to their property. Jamey French, president of Northland Forest Products, suggested that more needs to be done to encourage banks to finance the forestry industry and encourage children to go into forestry.

Vilsack said he agrees that there are numerous ways government can get involved with forest preservation - through tax policy, funding for conservation programs and assistance in managing lands. Vilsack said the traditional markets for wood and paper must be maintained but mixed with new jobs in green buildings, energy products and carbon sequestration, which is a way of removing carbon from the atmosphere. This past June, state foresters throughout the country completed a project mapping out their natural resources.

"As budgets tighten, these assessments will give valuable information to focus dollars so they have maximum impact and effect," Vilsack said.

In the current economic climate, when members of Congress are facing increasing criticism about government spending and the growing national debt, it may be difficult for environmental programs to obtain additional funding.

Shaheen said that is why Congress must pass a clean energy bill that will create incentives for using biomass and will also create opportunities for wind, hydro and other sources of clean, alternative energy.

Vilsack said the question for him is how to use existing resources wisely. He said he can make a strong case that investing in clean water, air, energy production and job growth is worthwhile.

"We'll focus on the broad payback, the return on the investment," Vilsack said.

VA breaks ground on biomass energy system

Chillicothe Gazette - Chillicothe, Ohio

BY LOREN GENSON • Gazette Staff Writer • August 6, 2010

The Chillicothe VA Medical Center soon will be home to a rare type of energy-efficient biomass energy system.

The center hosted a groundbreaking for the new $26 million biomass energy center that will heat the entire VA facility. The biomass system will create steam and generate electrical power from the burning of wood chips and is expected to save about $900,000 per year in energy costs.

"When completed, this energy center, using state-of-the-art green technology, will be a showcase for other VA hospitals that seek to do the same," Chillicothe VA Director Jeffrey Gering said.

The VA already had been planning a $12 million boiler replacement to upgrade the current 40-year-old system that was failing. State Rep. Ray Pryor stepped in with the idea to secure additional government money to upgrade to a boiler-fueled biomass system.

Pryor and Gering worked with U.S. Rep. Zack Space to secure American Recovery and Reinvestment Act money, and $14 million for the biomass upgrade was announced in June.

"I think it's great they were able to take a project that was already moving forward, and change directions slightly when they saw how great green energy could be," Pryor said.

In a biomass facility, wood chips are burned to create steam to generate power. The wood chips are a renewable resource that are carbon-neutral and are considered a "green" product from an environmental standpoint.

Columbus and Chillicothe Veterans Affairs Energy Manager Dale Allard said even the unused ash produced by the biomass process is agricultural-grade material that can be reused in farming operations.

"We'll be burning about three semi-truck loads of wood a day, and after burning for five days, we'll have only a small ash pile left over, it's that efficient," Allard said.

The facility also will be fully enclosed so there will be no smoke pollution.

"It's state-of-the-art pollution control technology," Allard said. "It's going to be very, very clean."

Space, who serves on the House committee on Energy and Commerce, said he hopes projects like the VA biomass will serve as a demonstration of the success of green technology elsewhere.

He pledged to continue to take a proactive and progressive stance on green energy.

"We're hoping to wean this country off foreign oil, and it's saving money on a large scale," Space said.

http://www.chillicothegazette.com/article/20100806/NEWS01/8060309/VA-breaks-ground-on-biomass-energy-system

Foresters Fight for Biomass Plants

There's been plenty of opposition to biomass plants that burn wood to create electricity. Now, supporters are getting organized and promising big benefits if the state allows the power plants to be built in Russell and Greenfield.

Massachusetts is the eighth most forested state in the country. The logging industry here in Western Mass says that's proof there are more than enough trees to fuel Biomass plants, without harming the environment.

"It will be creating more jobs, creating more money for the economy, it goes right up the line," says Kenneth Lynds, president of the Massachusetts Wood Producers Association.

He also says not to worry. We live in one of the most tree-covered states in the country. But we don't harvest the wood like other states do, and that creates an opportunity to grow the number of forestry jobs by logging more land.

"Every product that comes out will help offset the cost and provide profit," says James Kelly, chairman of the Massachusetts Association of Professional Foresters. "Loggers can continue and the opportunities for young loggers to come in and find the resource and know they can make money."

But plans to build biomass plants that burn logs to generate electricity have hit opposition in Russell and Greenfield. Residents are worried about air quality, because burning creates pollution.

But foresters say the study protesters point to, which was put out by the Deval Patrick Administration, wrongly compares state-of-the-art biomass facilities with coal-fired power plants.

"They misinterpreted it. They need to look at it, rethink it," Lynds says.

With job creation, foresters say biomass isn't just helping the economy. It's also helping the environment. When trees are cut down, Mother Nature will replenish the forest with new trees to capture enough carbon to balance out carbon released when trees are harvested. So in the long run, wood is better than coal.

"It is actually better for the carbon cycling than coal or oil or any of the fossil fuels," Kelly says.

The foresters hope that people will keep an open mind to biomass and consider the benefits for the state's forest industry if they're built.

SOURCE: CBS 3 Springfield - One Monarch Place, Suite 300 - Springfield, MA 01144-7012

Beetles that destroy ash trees reach Tennessee

By Morgan Simmons
Knoxville News Sentinel
Thursday, July 29, 2010

A small, metallic-green beetle that destroys ash trees has made its way to Tennessee.

For the past several years, state agriculture officials have been on the lookout for the emerald ash borer, an exotic insect pest discovered in southeastern Michigan in 2002 that has since spread to 14 U.S. states and two Canadian provinces.

Tennessee's first outbreak was discovered near Knoxville two weeks ago. An out-of-state forestry professional happened to notice an ash tree with tell-tale signs of emerald ash borer damage at a truck stop in Knox County near the Loudon County line. Last week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture positively identified an adult beetle collected at the site as an emerald ash borer.

In response to the find, the Tennessee Department of Agriculture will issue a quarantine in Knox and Loudon counties prohibiting the movement of firewood, ash nursery stock, ash timber and other materials that can spread the emerald ash borer.

"A lot of states have tried to eradicate it, and none have been successful," said Gray Haun, plant certification administrator for the Tennessee Department of Agriculture. "The best we can hope for is to contain the infestation and slow the spread with some sort of biological controls."

A native of Asia, the emerald ash borer kills all four native species of ash - green, white, blue and black. The adults lay their eggs on the tree, and after hatching, the larvae feed beneath the bark, inscribing tunnels that kill the tree in about three years by disrupting the flow of nutrients and fluids.

Ash wood is commonly used in hardwood flooring, tool handles, kitchen cabinets and baseball bats. According to a 2009 report by the USDA, the emerald ash borer's impact on urban areas could mean the loss of up to 90 million trees and up to $60 billion in landscaping damages.

Tennessee agricultural officials estimate that 10 million urban ash trees across the state are potentially at risk.
In the coming weeks, plant inspectors and foresters with the Tennessee Department of Agriculture, the USDA, and the Tennessee Valley Authority will set up a command center in Knoxville to survey trees in order to assess the extent of the infestation.

Because firewood is a common medium for the movement of emerald ash borers, officials are urging area residents to not transport firewood - even within Tennessee - and not to buy or move firewood from outside the state.

In anticipation of the emerald ash borer spread, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park already has set up insect traps and imposed restrictions at campgrounds that require all firewood brought in from quarantined states to be burned.

Ash trees in the Smokies typically are found in cove hardwood forests at low to mid-elevations. The park contains two species of ash, green and white, both of which produce large numbers of seeds that feed birds and mammals.

Kristine Johnson, supervisory forester for the Smokies, said the inevitable loss of ash trees will be another blow to the park's ecosystem that already has suffered from other exotic pests and diseases that have wiped out hemlocks and beech trees.

Of the recent emerald ash borer discovery near Knoxville, Johnson said she was "sad, but not surprised" by the news.

"We're sorry to learn that yet another important tree species is likely to be lost," Johnson said.

Morgan Simmons may be reached at 865-342-6321.

© 2010 Scripps News Service - Online