WMA Biomass opponents challenge study's impartiality

Last Friday, Springfield area residents got some good news.  According to a press release from the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs,  

Secretary Bowles announced that he has directed MassDEP to suspend review of permit applications for facilities proposing to use construction and demolition materials (C&D) as fuel for energy generation, including the proposed Palmer Renewable Energy facility, until a comprehensive assessment of the environmental impacts of using such materials is completed.. This assessment will include a review of potential for emissions of greenhouse gases and other air pollutants related to C&D, an analysis of level of contaminants commonly found in C&D feedstocks, and a review of the most effective means for minimizing, sampling and monitoring of toxics and other contaminants of concern in these feedstocks. Further, the Secretary has directed MassDEP, in coordination with the state Department of Public Health (DPH), to conduct a review of the potential public health impacts associated with the combustion C&D. 

 What this all means and how we can make sure the study hits all the right bases is the subject for another post.  But biomass opponents in Russell and Greenfield got no such breather.  The following is a press release sent out yesterday:     

 MASSACHUSETTS WOOD BURNING BIOMASS PLANTS ARE STILL BEING PERMITTED

Concerned Citizens of Russell, Concerned Citizens of Franklin County, the Stop Spewing Carbon Campaign and Massachusetts Forest Watch and the will hold a press conference on Thursday, December 17, 2009 at 5:30 pm in the Rear Parking Lot of the Holiday Inn at 245 Whiting Farms Road, Holyoke, MA (Off of I-91, just north of Mass Pike and near the Ingleside Mall) .

 This press conference is in response to the “Massachusetts Biomass Sustainability and Carbon Policy” study commissioned by the Department of Energy Resources.  Consultants for the state-sponsored study will hold a meeting inside the hotel from 6:30 – 8:30 P.M.

Conference sponsors are alerting the public to misleading media reports that give the impression that wood burning biomass power plants are ‘on hold’ in Massachusetts.   While the Springfield Biomass power plant’s permits to burn construction and demolition debris are on hold pending a health study, the Russell Biomass and Greenfield Biomass plants are proceeding full steam ahead, with Russell Biomass intending to begin construction in 2010.  Both Russell and Greenfield would burn millions of trees annually and could eventually be converted to burning trash and/or construction and demolition debris as has happened elsewhere.

The Department of Energy Resources (DOER) has placed a one year moratorium on statements of qualification for Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) while the Manomet study is completed.

“This suspension is meaningless,” said Jana Chicoine, spokesperson of the Concerned Citizens of Russell, “The developers don't need those credits until after construction is completed, and that would be years from now. Russell Biomass is full steam ahead with many things in play. They are still getting key support from the state,” she said, citing a recent decision of the Department of Public Utilities favoring Russell Biomass.

According to critics, the study has been framed as “how much” to burn rather than examining the wisdom of increased cutting and burning forests.  They say there is no need to waste taxpayer money studying the “sustainability” of biomass power production when it is already known to be worse than coal for carbon dioxide emissions that cause global warming and just as dirty as coal for air pollutants that cause cancer and asthma.

 

Chris Matera from Massachusetts Forest Watch commented,   “We already know that increasing logging and burning will negatively affect the forest, air quality, and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, so we do not need to spend $100,000 taxpayer dollars for a study designed to convince citizens that water runs up hill.  Instead of studying how many millions of dollars we should spend burning how many millions of trees in dirty wood burning biomass plants, we should use the money to create truly clean energy jobs such as installing solar panels and insulating homes.”  

  

Meg Sheehan Chair of the Stop Spewing Carbon Campaign agrees. “Over 103,000 voters signed our petition to stop biomass burning and they want to get rid of these plants now.   They don’t want more studies.  Using voter’s money to study incinerators that burn trees is just a political move to lull the public into thinking the state is doing something.  The incriminating facts already show that this is dirty energy.  The Patrick administration is still pushing full steam ahead by continuing to permit the Russell and Greenfield plants even though voters have sent a strong message they don’t want the plants.”

Critics also say the wood “sustainability” study will not be unbiased because the three main consultants to the Manomet study, The Pinchot Institute ( www.pinchot.org/bioenergy) , the Forest Guild ( www.forestguild.org/biomass.html) and the Biomass Energy Resource Center  ( www.biomasscenter.org/services/technical-services/biomass-resource-supply-services.html ) are all proponents of wood burning biomass energy plants.

Additionally, the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences has ties to the timber industry as the advisory board of the Center’s Forest Conservation Program is chaired by Roger Milliken Jr., CEO of a large commercial timber company and former chairman of the Maine Forest Products Council, lobbyist for the Maine timber industry.

“This is a common sense issue,” said Matera of Massachusetts Forest Watch.  “At a time of polluted skies, a carbon overloaded atmosphere and stressed forests, it is pure folly to force taxpayers to subsidize more cutting and burning of forests.”

Photo from Yuyiyuyi's photostream at Flickr.

Greenfield residents sold down the river-- or should I say sewage line?

"If you wouldn't want to drink it, why would you want to breathe it?"  That very reasonable question by a Greenfield resident to the Greenfield Appointment and Ordinance Committee at a public hearing last Monday summed up the concerns of the 100 people in the Greenfield Middle School auditorium..

Greenfield is one of the three communities targeted for the development of biomass plants, Governor Patrick's newest, one-size-fits-all solution to Massachusett's energy needs. Biomass developer Matthew Wolfe's original proposal called for the plant to purchase water from the municipality to dissipate heat from its incinerator.

Now Wolfe wants to purchase partially-treated waste water from the town instead. Gotta keep those costs down, you know? The waste water would be pumped uphill to the plant.

Not one of the residents of Greenfield, many of whom were medical and scientific experts, spoke in favor of this idea.

First, there's the pathogens that might be emitted-- viruses and bacteria that abound in partially treated water. But even assuming that most of them would be destroyed in the heating process, that leaves everything else. A 2005 survey of drinking water in 42 states by the Environmental Working Group found 141 unregulated chemicals and an additional 119 for which the Environmental Protection Agency has set health-based limits, including disinfection byproducts, nitrates, chloroform, barium, arsenic and copper. CommonDreams.

Two categories of chemicals were of particular concern to Greenfield residents: antibiotics and endocrine disruptors.  The dangers of antibiotic overuse are becoming better-known: we get resistant to antibiotics and so do the pathogens.  Endocrine disruptors, which are both hormones and those chemicals which mimic hormones, are less well-known to the public, although biologists are aware of their effect on sexual reproduction on amphibians and fish.  Nicholas Kristof's column, It's Time to Learn From Frogs, details some of the effects already taking place in humans, and it's scary reading.

In the end, after receiving page after page of testimony against the use of waste water for cooling, the
Greenfield Appointment and Ordinance Committee did the only thing they could do-- they approved Wolfe's request.  The chairman of the board tried to get the decision put off for a week so it could be studied, but none of the other three had the guts-- or the intelligence-- to second the motion.

It's not all over for Greenfield residents, who continue organizing against this incinerator and who have a number of legal strategies in play.  We in Springfield, however, had almost almost lost the battle against the incinerator proposed for our community before we even knew knew about the war.  Our incinerator, proposed by Palmer Renewable Energy, will burn mostly construction and demolition wood, contaminated with arsenic, lead, mercury and other toxic chemicals.  We're late in the day getting started, but I don't believe we're too late.  Check out the website for our organizing efforts, Say NO to Construction and Debris Incineration.


Photo from Aliwest44's photostream at Flickr.

Burning more wood is for cavemen

Here's a letter about biomass from Chris Matera, Forest Watch, which was published in The Brattleboro Reformer.

The glowing and superficial review of burning forests for energy (a.k.a., biomass energy) in the July 29 editorial by the Reformer and its flippant dismissal of western Massachusetts' concerns regarding this dirty power source does a serious disservice to its readers.

Not only has biomass burning been described with talking points straight from the biomass industry playbook, but the situation down here in western Massachusetts was so poorly described as to raise questions as to how much homework was done before dismissing very informed and concerned citizens as "NIMBY's."

Such a cheap shot mimics industry tactics meant to marginalize anyone disagreeing with the developers plans to cash in, and is a punt on finding the facts so it is disappointing to see the Reformer stoop to this level. The citizens working on this are volunteering their weekends, evenings and lunch hours to defend the New England environment, including Brattleboro, Vt., from increased pollution, CO2 emissions and deforestation.

Here are some facts which align with common sense beyond the slick marketing claims of the "biomess" industry.

* Contrary to industry claims, biomass energy does not reduce CO2 emissions, it increases them. Biomass energy produces 50 percent more CO2 per megawatt hour of energy than coal. That is not a typo, and is based on numbers from the developers own reports.

Since burning wood is so inefficient, burning living trees (locked up carbon), is actually worse than coal. Biomass burning releases about 3,300 pounds of CO2 per megawatt hour, while coal releases 2,100 pounds and gas about 1,400 pounds. Of course, industry waves a magic wand and says burning trees is carbon neutral because the trees grow back. That is nonsense. It takes a minute to burn a tree and at least 50 years to grow back (not to mention all the ecosystem impacts).That this myth has lived so long is a testament to the power of marketing, lobbying and a gullible (or worse) press.

Not only is burning trees worse than coal for CO2 emissions, but it produces more nitrous oxide, VOC's and particulates than coal, again by the proponents' own numbers.

Additionally, since when did burning trees become "green"? For all of my 44 years, we have learned that we need to plant trees for air and water quality, and recycle paper to save trees, and now all of a sudden let's pump massive "clean" energy public subsidies into burning forests for energy and let's call it "green".

This is truly Alice in Wonderland stuff. Fortunately, here in Massachusetts the Sierra Club has figured it out and calls biomass the "new coal".

While all biomass burning of green trees is a bad idea, the scale of the plants is important. The Middlebury College plant, for example, would burn about 21,000 tons of wood chips per year and this amount of wood could be provided by truly "waste" wood and is not such a big deal from a forest impact perspective, but the McNeil plant in Burlington, Vt., only runs part-time and burns about 250,000 tons of wood annually.

The owners admit that clearcuts up to 25 acres (25 football fields) occur to provide wood to fuel this plant. Additionally, McNeil has had lawsuits against it by neighbors for pollution and sometimes has substituted gas to lower emissions since it has regularly exceeded emissions allowances.

Now for perspective on what is happening in Massachusetts and is likely coming your way in Vermont. Massachusetts' current proposals are to build 190 megawatts of biomass energy that would require burning 2.5 million tons of wood each year. This is massive considering that the average total timber harvest in Massachusetts is about 500,000 tons. At this rate, all western and central Massachusetts forests could be logged in 16 years. If rare species habitat and state and privately protected areas are taken out, the entire area could be logged in nine years. (See www.maforests.org/Impacts.htm).

Public lands are target to provide 532,000 green tons of wood annually, a 1,082 percent increase over historical logging levels. Burning all this forest would only increase Massachusetts power generating capacity by just 1 percent, yet increase power plant CO2 emissions by 10 percent. Conservation measures, which cost one-third of what it costs to make new energy, could reduce our energy use by 30 percent. Just supplying the trees to these plants would require about 650 logging truck trips per day or 200,000 trips per year, at about 5 miles per gallon for trips up to 100 miles, mostly on narrow rural roads. For citations on all these matters, and photos of heavy clear cutting of Massachusetts forests, see www.maforests.org/Biomess.pdf.

At this time of ecological and economic crisis, there can be no reasonable argument for forcing taxpayers to subsidize new polluting, CO2 emitting, forest devastating carbon based fuels for minimal amounts of power. These policies will worsen air pollution, increase greenhouse gas emissions, deplete forests and drain our public coffers, the exact opposite of what we need to be doing right now. Taxpayer subsidies and other incentives should be redirected toward truly green technologies to produce clean, non-carbon emitting energy, and local jobs.

Chris Matera is the founder of Massachusetts Forest Watch, a Northampton, Mass.-citizen watchdog group formed to defend Massachusetts state forests against commercial exploitation and to promote genuinely "green" energy solutions.

Photo from The Massachusetts Chainsaw Massacre: Savoy State Forest

Greenfield biomass hearing gets wild

Well, Springfield, we've got to catch up. Greenfield has some passionate environmentalists, but last night when the Greenfield Zoning Board didn't even want to hear from a resident who lives right across the street from the proposed plant, and has the police remove her, you know something's rotten.

Mary Serreze has photos and an astounding audio file over on her blog. Give it a listen.

Photo from Noe's photostream at Flickr.

Many good reasons to oppose biomass proposal for Springfield

On Tuesday, June 16, I and my sister Liz, Arise's Economic Justice organizer, went to a public forum by the Springfield Area Sustainable Energy Association (SASEA) on the problems with a biomass plant proposed for Springfield by Palmer Paving. Only 30 people or so attended the forum at Western New England College, and only a few were actually from Springfield, MA-- but still, just possibly enough to form a core organizing group in opposition to the plant.

Actually, five biomass plants are in various planning stages in Western Mass.-- Fitchburg (really more Central MA), Pittsfield, Greenfield, Russell and Springfield. I knew that considerable organizing has been going on in Russell organized by Concerned Citizens of Russell, and the night before, 500 people had shown up for a public hearing about Greenfield's plant.

My poor city, however, is full of poor people, not farmers and environmentalists. Most people's attention is focused on how to meet basic needs like paying rent and utilities. Trying to figure out how can we build opposition here is why I went to the forum.

What I learned is that the biomass proposal is far worse than I could have imagined.

What follows is my first attempt to pull together some of the key facts about the Western MA proposals, in particular, the Springfield plant. Being unfamiliar with the funding mechanisms for biomass, and the extent of the political maneuvering, some facts in the first bullet are sketchy. I'm hoping to strengthen all sections as I get feedback and more information. If you have facts to add, strengthen or correct, please let me know.

MONEY & POLITICS

1. We don’t need these biomass plants. All five plants will provide only 1.2% of Massachusett’s power.
2. Dollars spent on conservation and winterization would reduce our need for electricity, save consumers money and provide a lot more jobs
3. Homes near biomass plants ultimately lose about 20% of their property value.
4. Biomass plants and proposals are sucking up more than 79% of the Renewable Energy credits dedicated for green industry (and it’s NOT green—see below). (Also not clear if this is on a state or federal level.)
5. The Springfield plant wouldn’t even be economically feasible to open and run if it were not for the $60 million in stimulus funds the owners will receive as soon as it’s open.
6. Western Mass advocates went to Washington, D.C. this Spring armed with information to oppose the promotion of biomass as green energy only to find out that the biomass industry had spent more than $80 million in the first quarter of the year to promote biomass. (Need to hear more of this story, which was told by Williamstown attorney and biomass opponent Margaret Sheehan.)

ENVIRONMENT

1. Biomass is NOT carbon-neutral: it takes 5 minutes to cut a tree and 70 years to grow a full-grown one!
2. Biomass plants will be allowed to clear-cut Massachusetts forests and will triple the logging rate.
3. Biomass is nearly as dirty as coal but somehow is considered “Green” energy!
4. Carbon dioxide emissions from biomass plants are exempt from regulations.
5. Just the three plants in Springfield, Russell and Greenfield will increase greenhouse gasses by nearly 8% more than 2007.
6. Biomass plants use a huge amount of water - , 0ver 800,000 gallons a day on peak days.
7. There has been no environmental impact study done on the Springfield plant! (not sure about Russell and Greenfield.)
8. The Springfield plant will be allowed to burn up to 75% “construction and demolition”” product (see below).

HEALTH

1. The Springfield plant is expected to add 4.3 tons of lead to the atmosphere, an increase of 71% over what is released today. (Still looking for info on the presence of lead in people’s bodies right now.)
2. Construction and Demolition product includes asbestos, wood with lead paint, wood treated with many other heavy metal compounds, and produces dioxin, the 2^nd most dangerous chemical in the world, linked to cancer, birth defects and many other health problems.
3. The state asthma rate for children continues to climb and is now at 10% but the Springfield rate is more than 16%! People with other breathing difficulties such as CODP are bound to suffer more.
4. Even though Massachusetts banned incineration plants 19 years ago, biomass releases as much Fine Particulate Matter as coal. FPM has no known safe level and is detrimental to breathing!
5. The plants also release chemicals which produce ground-level ozone, also hazardous to breathing
6. Woodpiles at the plants can also create stubborn fires which can smoulder for long periods. An Athens, ME biomass fire forced schoolchildren indoors at recess for more than six weeks.

So that's the story as I know it so far. The public forum helped me to identify some key allies but there are so many more organizations and people that need to be involved, including health centers, neighborhood councils and our elected officials, who so far, seem only interested in the amount of tax revenue that Palmer Paving will add to the city's coffers.

The Springfield plant is very far along in the permit process with, I believe, only one hearing left to happen. We've got our work cut out for us.

Photo: clearcutting at the Savoy State forest. See the Massachusetts Chainsaw Massacre for more chilling photos and information.

Immigrants jailed, hidden, shuffled around in Massachusetts

Many people think of correctional institutes-- when they think of them at all-- as sources of jobs and tax money for their economically depressed communities. But for the families of the undocumented, these facilities are black holes, sucking away their loved one.

As a resident of Western Mass. and a member of Arise for Social Justice, I fought long, hard and unsuccessfully with others to attempt to prevent the construction of a new jail for women in Chicopee. At the same time, a new jail was being constructed 40 miles north, in Greenfield. Last month, that jail became "home" to 34 immigrants transfered from the Donald W. Wyatt Detention Facility in Central Falls, R.I. Those inmates were transfered because of the death in Wyatt of an undocumented man last August.

According to the New York Times, the Wyatt facility "offers a rare look into the fastest-growing, least-examined type of incarceration in America, an industry that detains half a million people a year, up from a few thousand just 15 years ago. The system operates without the rules that protect criminal suspects, and has grown up with little oversight, often in the backyards of communities desperate for any source of money and work."

The article goes on to talk about the chilling disappearance of the undocumented who lived in Central Falls. Their families would search for them, only to find they were incarcerated in the same community where they worked and lived.

Back in December Fred Contrada of the Springfield Republican wrote about the transfer of the unauthorized immigrants to the Franklin County House of Correction in Greenfield. He also mentioned that 26 of its own detainees were transfered out to other facilities in Rhode Island to make room for the new. Thus people are separated from their families as they are shuffled from one community to another.

Addendum: In the final hours of the Bush Administration, Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey has denied unauthorized immigrants one of the few appeals to deportation that had been open to them, the right to appeal their deportation because of mistakes made by their attorneys in their hearings. You can read more here.

Photo from ProgressIllinois.

More job losses in Western Mass

Verizon is blaming changing technology on its need to cut 82 jobs at its Greenfield call center, saying people are using the Internet more to find phone numbers. Well, Duh! This is a real "chicken or the egg" situation. We all have had the frustrating experience of using an automated system that rarely understands what you are saying and needs to send you to a live operator who has been listening all the time but is not allowed to give you the information until the automated system has done its thing. No wonder that when people can, they turn to the Internet. Verizon says that jobs have gained overall, that they've added 200 jobs across the state. But the International Brotherhood of Electrical workers Local 2324 says 105 Western Mass jobs have already been lost in the region since last year.

The Republican had more bad news for us this morning: Mass Mutual, one of Springfield's largest employers, is laying off 30 workers in its retirement division.

How bad is job loss in the region?

Last June, Springfield Wire announced it would cease to manufacture in the region and phase out 180 jobs over the next eighteen months. There was another major job loss around the same time, and more since then.

I wish I'd been keeping track, but it's not too late to start.

I hope WMA readers will send in comments about job losses they're aware of in the last year. I did a search of MassLive but didn't turn up much.