“Buy Local” Quality Seal for Forest Industry Announced at Heyes Forest Products in Orange, MA

“Buy Local” Quality Seal for Forest Industry Announced at Heyes Forest Products in Orange, MA Scott Soares, MDAR Commissioner Referencing more than 300 years  that farming, fishing and forestry  have been indispensable to New  England's landscape and economy,  Massachusetts Department of  Agriculture Commissioner Scott Soares  unveiled the new Quality Seal for  Forest Products before environmental,  agricultural and forestry officials as well  as industry leaders and local well-wishers gathered at Heyes Forest  Products in Orange, MA.  The Quality Seal for Forest Products  is intended to replicate the success  of the Buy Local campaign for food  products with locally grown and  harvested forest products. “Forest products have always been part of  a rich, diverse agricultural history in Massachusetts,”  Commissioner Soares commented. “Commonwealth Quality provides  consumers an assurance that they are receiving a product that was  harvested and manufactured in Massachusetts using sustainable  practices that promote responsible land management.” Heyes Forest Products display "What we hope it will do is  provide the industry the ability  to increase its marketability based  on the standards of operation  they employ,” Soares added. The seal will also be made  available for locally grown  and sustainably harvested  cord wood. Andy Finton, Nature Conservancy Andy Finton, director of conservation  science for The Nature Conservancy  in Massachusetts, stated that locally grown  wood products help support local foresters  and harvesters, and encourages family  forest owners to keep their forest as  forest and protect wildlife habitat. “Some areas of our state are 90 percent  forested with many small communities tucked into vast swaths of  canopy cover,” Finton explained.  “We have over 3 million acres of forest in Massachusetts.  Relative to our size, we’re the eighth most forested state.” "One advantage we owe to our forests is exceptional  water quality. Towns like Springfield and Pittsfield rely  on reservoirs that are shielded by the Berkshire forests,”  Finton stated. “Our water in Boston is protected  by forests around the Quabbin reservoir. And these  forests also sequester large amounts of carbon.  In fact, forests in the Northeast absorb 12 to 15 percent  of the carbon put into our atmosphere.” “With so many landowners living in such close proximity  to desirable forestland, development pressures are intense.  The need for both protection and good stewardship is essential,” Finton stated. The gathering included environmental, agricultural, forestry & wood products officials as well as local well-wishers.  “The Nature Conservancy has long believed that the forest products economy  is an important part of the conservation equation, and we see the Commonwealth  Quality program as a useful strategy for sustainable forest resource management  in Massachusetts.” Fred Heyes Fred Heyes, the owner/operator of one of five  designated Commonwealth Quality suppliers,  spoke of the future of farms and forests in Massachusetts  being dependent on developing a demand for local products.  Heyes’ 42-year-old wholesale and retail business sells  2.5 million feet of lumber and specialty products locally,  as well as around New England and beyond. “Very little of the wood each of us consumes in Massachusetts  is locally grown,” Heyes commented. “Less than 5% of wood  products purchased in Massachusetts are from Massachusetts forests.” Click to enlarge To show this point a tall pine tree was displayed whole  but cut into logs, pulp and residuals and representing  the average annual usage of forest products for each and  every person, each year. Also displayed next to the tree  was a pile of boards equal to the board feet in that tree,  and on top of that pile a very small pile of boards equal  to the 5% of our needs we now source locally. David Short of Amherst Woodworking & Supply, Inc.  in Northampton, another Commonwealth Quality supplier,  spoke of the difference between the carbon footprint created from the molding and  flooring manufactured within 40 miles which had been logged, sawn, dried and  supplied from Heyes Forest Products versus  products grown in China such as bamboo -  which is actually a grass. Short explained that these products are marketed as “green”  despite the fact that the bamboo is grown  where there is little to no environmental standards and is a highly industrialized product that has an enormous carbon  footprint due to its transport to markets  around the globe. Additional Commonwealth Quality suppliers,  not present, include Gurney’s Sawmill, East Freetown, Specialty Wood Products in Cheshire, and W. R. Robinson Lumber, Wheelwright. Following the presentation, state officials,  foresters and other visitors boarded a bus  for a tour of a one of the many forested  areas owned by Heyes that is protected  under a state Fisheries and Wildlife  conservation restriction, and enrolled in the  Chapter 61 tax program. The 357 acre parcel,  harvested regularly during the last 20 years had  been thinned three years earlier and provided  an excellent demonstration of the long-term  land management he practices for an increasing  forest crop assuring also the protection of both  water quality and wildlife habitat. Fred Heyes led the tour of his conservation restricted forest For further information on the Quality Seal  brand for Massachusetts grown, harvested  and processed products - using practices that  are safe, sustainable and don’t harm the  environment -  visit: http://www.mass.gov/agr/markets/commonwealth_quality.htm Photo Credit and Story: Genevieve Fraser

The Sky is not Falling, Biomass Makes it Cleaner asserts Russell Biomass Proponent

The Sky is not Falling, Biomass Makes it Cleaner asserts Russell Biomass Proponent

Biomass Could Make Local Year-Round Agriculture a Reality in Massachusetts

John Bos

By John Bos
Public Information Officer
Russell Biomass LLC

On June 13 an Associated Press story in the Greenfield Recorder reported that in “Looking to wean itself from foreign oil, Vermont’s capital and several other cities and towns are considering whether to create a wood-fueled district heating system for city buildings and schools, one into which residents and businesses eventually could hook up.”

Much further from home, the Associated Press also reported on May 5 that “The four-day meeting of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which began Thursday in Abu Dhabi was largely bullish on replacing fossil fuels.”

“The world's TOP SCIENTIFIC BODY concluded that renewable energy in the coming decades will be widespread and could one day represent the dominant source for powering factories and lighting homes,” according to a draft report obtained by The Associated Press.

Clean, renewable biomass
wood chips

“The report found that renewable energy — including solar, hydro, wind, biomass, geothermal and ocean energy — represented only about 13 percent of the primary energy supply in 2008. But its growth is picking up with almost half of new electricity generating capacity coming from renewables in 2008 and 2009.”

Preventing the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from actively supporting the only renewable fuel that can deliver baseload (24/7) power to meet the increasing demand for electric power is a small, but well-organized and fervent group of anti-biomass opponents who have succeeded in duping the general public with unsupportable scare stories about an environmental Armageddon that would occur if we burned clean waste wood.

The sky is falling assertions by biomass opponents that air quality would be compromised ignores the just released State of the Air 2011 report by the American Lung Association that finds continued progress in cutting year-round particle pollution, compared to the 2010 report. “Thanks to reductions in emissions from coal-fired power plants and the transition to cleaner diesel fuels and engines,” the ALA reports, “cleaner air shows up repeatedly in the monitoring data, especially in the eastern U.S.”

Emissions from coal fired plants create acid rain
which damages Northeast forests and pollutes rivers
and streams

“Over 440 coal-fired power plants in 46 states are among the largest contributors to particulate pollution, ozone, mercury, and global warming” according to the ALA. “Their pollution blows across state lines into states thousands of miles away.”

This kind of scientific analysis is not welcomed by the “wood is worse than coal” crowd.

Coal mining explosion

It reminds me that air quality in Russell, Hampden County, western Massachusetts and much of New England comes from the coal-fired power plants in Ohio and the mid-west. Unfortunately, we live in an area that is in the path of an air stream that delivers the acid rain, sulfur and other emissions that are produced by burning coal. It is the reason that Connecticut s attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, and other states sued Ohio Edison for failing to clean up coal plants whose harmful emissions are carried by the prevailing winds to Connecticut and other New England states. In discussing the 2005 settlement, Blumenthal said that "Burning biomass instead of coal will literally save lives in Connecticut, as well as reduce incidence of asthma and other respiratory ailments.

Forest fires can be minimized with proper forest management
which reduces dead and dying trees and other hazards

“Burning firewood and trash,” the ALA State of the Air 2011 report continues, “are among the largest sources of particles in many parts of the country. If you must use a fireplace or stove for heat, convert your woodstoves to natural gas, which has far fewer polluting emissions.” See the ALA’s position on residential wood combustion in a letter to the EPA at http://burningissues.org/car-www/education/ala.htm .
As for particle pollution the ALA gave monitored Massachusetts counties the following grades: Bristol, Essex and Middlesex – A: Berkshire, HAMPDEN, Plymouth and Worcester – B, and Suffolk Country – C.

McNeil Biomass Plant in Burlington, Vermont
Particulates and other pollutants are
"scrubbed" out of the smokestack

And once again, as in the last ALA State of the Air Report, Burlington, VT, the home of the 50 megawatt McNeil Generating Station biomass power plant, was one of only two Northeastern cities in the list of “cleanest U.S. Cities for Short-Term Particle Pollution, the other being Bangor, ME.  Burlington also remained on the list of the “Top 25 Cleanest U.S. Cites for Year-Round Particle Pollution” along with Bangor.

Click to enlarge

These facts do not dissuade biomass opponents; they only deepen their anti-biomass resolve. Stanford University psychologist Leon Festinger, quoted in the May 20 issue of The Week wrote: “A man with a conviction is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point.”

So who is to be the rational arbiter of what is fact and what is fiction (intentional or otherwise)?

NC Department of Agriculture

Russell Biomass, in anticipation of the new, stricter state biomass regulations, began and is currently analyzing the economic feasibility of the conversion of our 50MW biomass power plant into a large scale CHP project that could provide a range of productive waste heat options. One possibility (receiving substantial interest throughout the state) is a greenhouse facility that would support the “grow local” food movement, use our cooling process heat as well as a direct supply of CO₂ (plants need CO₂ to grow!), make it possible to meet the DOER’s new 40% efficiency standard, and greatly increase our job creation impact. 

Our goal is to provide:

§        environment benefits including the (1) consumption of 500,000 tons of the several million tons of waste wood generated annually (which no one has come up with any way to dispose of in an environmentally preferable way), (2) a , "carbon profile...very favorable compared to that of harvesting standing trees"  as stated in the Manomet study, (3) a reduction in the 80% of the money now leaving the state to buy fossil fuels;

§        an economically beneficial project for the Town of Russell (which would receive an average of $1.3 million a year in tax revenues plus additional TIF benefits); and

§        a “win-win” for the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs and the DOER that would provide an example of the only kind of renewable energy baseload electric power project in the state’s new clean energy plan mix of renewables.

Biomass Energy Resource Center
http://www.biomasscenter.org/

Being a “rational arbiter” for a contentious public issue is, in this instance, the role of state government whose constituents include parties for and against biomass. Not an enviable task given the large and significant issues at stake. It has required a blend of balanced leadership, cautious consideration, public process and arduous policy development to address all sides of the arguments for and against biomass energy. 

Click to enlarge

The Massachusetts Clean Energy and Climate Plan for 2020 states that “All of our fossil-based energy sources — oil, natural gas, and coal — are derived from other regions of the country (e.g., the Gulf Coast or Western states) and other parts of the world, many of them unstable or hostile to the United States, (e.g., countries in the Middle East and Venezuela). Thus, all spending on fossil fuel energy,” the Plan says, whether to fuel power plants, buildings, or vehicles — flows out of state and fails to provide income to in-state businesses or employees. This exported economic value is significant, totaling almost $22 billion in 2008.”

State residents who have bought the “wood worse than coal” contagion might want to consider two things:

1.     In 2008, the Clean Energy and Climate Plan reports that “an average Massachusetts household spent about $5,200 for energy costs, of which about $1,700 was for heating (space and water), $1,300 for electricity, and $2,200 for gasoline. Almost all of these expenditures leave Massachusetts;” and that

2.     their misinformed total opposition to biomass supports the fossil fuel industry and efforts by respected environmental organizations to reduce our dependence on coal and petroleum.

From out here way beyond Route 128 we are watching a critical work in progress by the Patrick administration and counting on realistic and rational support for eligible biomass projects that meet the new state regulations.

John Bos
Public Information Officer
Russell Biomass LLC

Note:  John Bos is the past director of Arts and Performance at National Public Radio (NPR) and past Deputy Director at New York State Council on the Arts.

Joe Zorzin Sounds off on Forestry and the Need for Biomass as a Forest Management Tool

Joe Zorzin Sounds off on Forestry and the Need for Biomass as a Forest Management Tool in Massachusetts

Joe, up a tree and thinking...!

The state has a goal of getting 500,000 acres of private land under forest management. I discovered this at the last Forest Forum on held at the Trustees of the Reservation’s Doyle Center in Leominster May 11, 2011.  The event was put on by Bob O'Connor, Director of Forest and Land Policy, EOEEA - the agenda included, "500,000 acre goal for enrollment in Chapter 61 and Forest Stewardship Program and Working Forest Initiative."

I'm not sure what the current figure is- I think it's just over 400,000 acres.

Getting more forest land under forest management is of course also part of Harvard Forest's Wildlands and Woodlands vision.

The problem is- how can you manage forests successfully if you have no market for much of the wood?

Joe Zorzin, forester, at home

The unfortunate reality is that much of the forest consists of worthless or almost worthless trees. Of course if that low value wood is hardwood, it may be possible to find a firewood operator who may be interested in harvesting those trees, but he/she won't take any softwood and will seldom take the smaller trees or some species like poplar and seldom the large, rough cull hardwoods and if the lot is way up on a mountain, or behind a swamp or across a brook, where he'll have to install a temporary bridge- forget it, he won't be interested.

Such stands that a firewood operator may not want have often been thinned by the "timber stand improvement" method - chainsaw girdling the undesirable trees to enhance growing conditions for the desired trees. The downside to this is that you leave hundreds if not thousands of dead trees in the forest. Now, having some dead trees is fine for the woodpeckers and other wildlife, but when it's a large number, it doesn't look good, the dead trees will fall sooner or later and rot, emitting carbon dioxide, and most loggers hate to see girdled trees because they are dangerous if still standing during the next commercial harvest because they will definitely come down if nudged by a falling, cut tree- extremely dangerous! One of my clients was walking in his forest, where a stand had been so treated, on a windy day and one such tree broke and hit him on the head, knocking him out. Lucky it was a very small tree and didn't kill him.

Another downside to girdling trees is that no landowner is going to be willing to pay for it without a subsidy. More years than not, subsidies are not available, so this valuable work seldom gets done. Many stands on Chapter 61/Stewardship acreage have not been thinned that should be simply because we can't do it, either no market or no subsidies and even when subsidies are available some foresters hesitate to do this work because they can't make a decent income doing it or because it's dangerous.

Mike Leonard's Forest Improvement Biomass Cutting

This is why when I saw Mike Leonard's biomass projects I was so impressed. I've been struggling to deal with this problem of low value stands for over 30 years- and meanwhile, more such low value stands have been created because forests are often high graded with state approval- there is less of this than in the past, but it still continues, though somewhat less egregiously.

But now that we have this tremendous tool to do excellent forestry- we have this problem of extreme resistance to the biomass industry. I believe it is with good intentions but this movement has demonized biomass making it out to be worse than it is. It's not perfect but neither is the rest of our civilization, but those who hate biomass make it seem as if this is the biggest environmental problem ever to face the human race- while they personally have a huge carbon footprint in their lifestyle as few Americans, even environmentalists, want to lose their comforts.

Check out:  http://www.biomassmagazine.com/

Everything in our modern world has tradeoffs including biomass. If done as well as possible, it will result in some carbon emissions for a period of time before the carbon debt is paid off and it enters the carbon dividend period. But the benefits are tremendous. We can thin the forests as never before, faster and safer and cheaper than by girdling and probably with little more carbon emissions than all those dead trees will emit (often 100 or more per acre!). Stands that are thinned this way will put most of the growth on the best trees which have the best potential to produce economic value at the fast rate- and this is exactly what foresters are supposed to be doing on managed forests. There of course many other benefits to this work- by enhancing forestry, it helps the owner to avoid selling to a developer, it's home grown energy- not from nations giving money to terrorists, and with a huge multiplier effect, the benefits to the state's economy for such excellent forestry is substantial.

I have included some photos taken of a stand where I girdled the trees.

The first really shows what thinning a forest is all about: that beautiful red oak was growing next to 2 diseased worthless beech. All too often in a case like this- it's the oak that gets cut and the beech that gets left- a classic high grading. Not only is such high grading economically detrimental to the owner, it's also detrimental to all society because of the greatly reduced future value of the forest and thus the loss to the future economy of the region. But by girdling the trees, it cost the owner something, it costs the government something for subsides, it's dangerous to do the work, and the trees can break and hurt somebody. At least by doing this girdling, the nice oak will grow faster for 10-20 years and since it's already veneer quality, the enhanced value will be tremendous.

But a minor disadvantage to this type of thinning is that the benefit to the growth of the remaining trees isn't as fast as it would be if those beech had been removed for firewood or biomass because the tops of the trees may still inhibit the expansion of the tops of the remaining trees as you can see in the following photo. The dead tree can still whip around in the wind damaging the live crowns of the remaining trees until they break off, hopefully not landing on anyone.

Girdled hemlock to benefit oak

The photo to the left shows where I girdled a hemlock to benefit another oak. Sometimes even when you do this correctly, it takes some years for the tree to die, so the tree can continue to shade the ground, holding back regeneration and other ground vegetation.

The photo directly below shows a triple headed black birch which might seem like a nice firewood tree, but if you ever cut trees, you'd know that this tree can be very dangerous to cut because it's hard to tell which way it will fall- the base of each stem is a bit too high to try dropping individually. In this case, the stand is way up a mountain side, too far from a road, and this work was done in the '90s when the market for firewood was very low- so I couldn't find a firewood operator. A harvesting machine could easily and safely cut this tree.

Triple Headed Black Birch

Hardwood with ingrown bark

The last photo is an example of what can go wrong with girdling- sometimes the trees don't die, especially big, rough, hardwood culls with ingrown bark. In this case, just above the image, the tree forks- but this red maple had ingrown bark due to that forking that goes right to the middle and right to the bottom, since it forked at an early age. In a case like this you need to carefully drive the saw right through the middle of the tree to sever all the cambium and if you don't, the tree will produce callus tissue where you missed a section of cambium, and it will survive perhaps another 100 years! Having to girdle through the middle is time consuming and dangerous. If it was a biomass harvest, the tree would be gone. 

The point of all this is that the state is pushing to get land into forestry but is now holding back the development of a responsible biomass industry due to a relatively low carbon emission pattern which the Manomet Report said will self correct within a reasonable time frame, if the biomass plant is well designed, if it's CHP or thermal, if the wood all comes from well managed forests. The state is acting schizophrenic over this- it wants forestry but keeps us from doing it well. A solution must be found that gives us this wonderful tool without a severe cost to the global environment. Everyone needs to compromise. The biomass builders need to focus on thermal or CHP and the anti biomass people need to understand that we really need this tool and that it's not the most evil thing ever invented comparable to Nazi extermination ovens, as one opponent recently said. The opponents also need to admit that they too have a carbon footprint, their own, as they fly in carbon spewing jets, eat beef from carbon spewing industrial agriculture, drive their large comfortable cars, watch oversized TVs, heat their homes, etc. The opponents also need to understand that the forestry community is not going to back down. Either this battle will escalate and get truly ugly, more than now, or we can all sit down and compromise in the true spirit of American democracy.

NOTE:

Joe Zorzin has been a forester in western Massachusetts for 38 years working in every type of forest in the region. His clients include a Guild Model Forest (the only one in Massachusetts).

Joe’s 1/3 Rule of Thumb in Forest Management found at http://www.vimeo.com/8399158

Joseph Zorzin, Forester License #261
Address: PO Box 388, Athol, MA 01331
cell phone: 413-212-0518
jjzorzin@verizon.net