In this edition of the ReCAP…

1. Next Calaveras Planning Coalition (CPC) Meeting
2. Board of Supervisors & Planning Commission meetings
3. $105k contract for Cosgrove Creek vegetation management approved by supervisors
4. Winter Preparedness event in White Pines
5. Cal Fire to ignite prescribed burns in Tuolumne, Calaveras counties
6. Prescribed burning in Calaveras Big Trees’ South Grove is delayed again
7. Supervisors approve $1.2M contract change order for Wagon Trail project
8. Public Invited to Scoping Meeting for Mokelumne Amador Calaveras Forest Resilience Project
9. Protests Grow as Corporate-Backed Biomass Projects Threaten Forests and Communities
10. Sierra Nevada Conservancy Funding Opportunities
11. Poem: Poets! Towards of God!

$105K contract for Cosgrove Creek vegetation management approved by supervisors

Lance Armstrong / Calaveras Enterprise / October 16, 2024

The Calaveras County Board of Supervisors, on Oct. 8, unanimously approved a contract for vegetation management for Cosgrove Creek with Nate’s Tree Service, Inc., of Sonora, in an amount not to exceed $105,000.

This work is intended to reduce the risk of flooding in Cosgrove Creek and adjacent areas.

In addition to requesting these funds, Erik Holt, the county’s Office of Emergency Services (OES) director, described the vegetation management work as being planned to extend from the area of the confluence at Silver Rapids with the Calaveras River to Gold Creek, where extensive flooding occurred.

District 5 Supervisor Benjamin Stopper, whose district includes Milton, Jenny Lind, Rancho Calaveras, and Salt Spring Valley, expressed his frustration with the timing of this funding request.

“It’s the fact that (the California Department of Forestry and Fire) is not there, and we’re (on the eighth) day of October,” he said. “We have three weeks to get this done. These guys cost $105,000, because they don’t work as hard as the prisoners do in getting it done quickly. So, they cost far more and take way more time.

“So, the point is we have to have this contract already on the books and ready to pull the trigger; like we should have already approved it in case Cal Fire doesn’t show up.”

Stopper added that parts of his district and Supervisor Gary Tofanelli’s District 1 have been left with vegetation areas during flood years. District 1 includes the communities of Circle XX, San Andreas, Valley Springs, Campo Seco, La Contenta, Camanche, Burson and Wallace.

Holt mentioned that he has dedicated a lot of time and will continue to dedicate a lot of time to find a permanent solution.

“But we do have to do something to reduce the risk this year,” he added.

Stopper agreed with Holt. “Absolutely, and I’m completely in favor this,” he said. “This is something we’ve been doing for quite some time before I was here, so just the contract has got to be ready earlier.”

Supervisor Amanda Folendorf suggested the possibility of establishing a multi-year contract to avoid annual crises and reduce costs.

“If we’re going to continue to be behind the eight ball, and if it’s going to be the revolving door we’re at, why don’t we just do a multiyear contract and then go from there?” she asked. “And then maybe (that approach will) solve some of this heartburn, where we’re not rushing when the permit expires at the end of this month.”

Calaveras County Executive Officer Teresa Hitchcock responded to Folendorf’s comment.

“Supervisor Stopper mentioned Cal Fire,” she said. “I think in the past, (the county’s Department of) Public Works has looked at ways to reduce the cost of this clearing project, and so they’ve looked to Cal Fire to do the clearing for the county, because it is much more cost-effective, as Supervisor Stopper mentioned. “However, as Supervisor Stopper also mentioned, we have increasingly had larger and more fire in the foothills that have pulled those crews off, so they’re not as readily available as potentially they have been in the past. So, looking at doing a contract for a multi-year may be something that we should consider at this point, because we know that Cal Fire is not as available as they have been in the past.”

Hitchcock also stated that the county is seeking to partner with different agencies to find a solution. “We don’t believe that this is simply a county solution,” Hitchcock said.

Folendorf stressed that there is a need to be more proactive to avoid a potential catastrophe in which many homes are flooded, resulting in millions of dollars in damages.

“I’m just kind of sick of seeing it, like Ben, over and over again every October,” she said. “We’re now in crisis mode. It needs to stop.”

After acknowledging that Holt is new to his position – having begun working in his current OES role last May – Tofanelli noted that he has been advocating for a permanent solution since 2009.

“This is (the California Department of) Fish and Wildlife, but (if) we do anything permanently to that creek, it’s (the U.S. Army) Corps of Engineers, and right now they’re doing a water management study, and it’s not going to be completed until 2026.

“And I don’t think we’re going to be able to move forward on any permanent project that has to do with this creek until they finish that water management study in not only for the lake, but for the flow of the creek during peak and low seasons.”

Tofanelli expressed interest in Folendorf’s suggestion to consider a multi-year contract, “until we could come up with a permanent solution that is agreeable with the Corps and Fish and Wildlife.”

He added that in the meantime, he hopes the work can be completed in three weeks, without the need to ask for an extension.

“The possibility exists that we could be into November, and if it rains, then they’re not going to give us that extension, because that brings the habitat into play,” Tofanelli said. “So, I would like to see this come to us again in May.”

Chair Jack Garamendi suggested adding the Cosgrove Creek vegetation management issue to the county’s strategic planning document “for this county as a whole to work through.”

“This is a problem that’s existed, as Gary said, going back 20-30 years,” he said. “Nobody there is surprised when their house gets flooded. But we need to come up with a solution that’s going to last, because if we just keep piecemealing $100,000, $125,000 a year to clear this, it’s not solving the problem. I would suggest that we put this on the strategic plan.”
Both Tofanelli and Stopper agreed with that suggestion, and Garamendi responded to that support.

“Let’s get through today and this season, and let’s figure out how to solve this problem,” Garamendi said.

Winter Preparedness event in White Pines

Jan Hovey / Calaveras Enterprise, Lodestar Lifestyle / October 16, 2024

Before we know it, winter will be upon us. With Climate Change, we are experiencing historic and dramatic changes in storms and never really know what we’re in for. The best thing to do is to prepare, as you would prepare for any emergency.

   To be sure you have all the resources for this coming winter, a first-time community event – The Winter Wise Preparedness Event, will take place at Independence Hall, 1445 Blagen Road in White Pines Saturday, October 26 from 9 a.m. to noon. Free of charge to attend, you’ll find an impressive roster of speakers that include Martin Huberty, District 3 supervisor; Mike Johnson, Ebbetts Pass Fire District chief; PG&E, Caltrans, Office of Emergency Services, Calaveras County Water District, Calaveras Animal Services, the Red Cross, FireWise, U.S. Forestry and Public Works. Here, you’ll also meet the new Calaveras County Sheriff – Rachelle Whiting. In addition, Rick Kerrigan, weather expert, will speak on climate change and how it affects us.

   Vendors, services and community businesses with informational booths include Calaveras Public Health, Health and Human Services, Calaveras Mariposa Community Action Agency, Big Trees State Park, Bear Valley Mountain Resort, snow removal resources, ERSN-Radio Network, tree and auto services, and many more.

   To make attendance even more enticing, Martha Rubin, volunteer event organizer, has arranged for raffle prizes, goodie bags and complimentary snacks and beverages.

   “Be Winter Wise,” said Martha. “Bring your family and tell your friends about it! We will be covering the full gamut of winter living in the mountains, how to buddy up with neighbors for check-ins, resources galore, how to keep pets safe and possibly some pets up for adoption. We are including all of these services so that it will truly serve residents of Calaveras County. What to do. Who to call.”

    “Visitors coming up to Calaveras during the winter should also be advised on what to do in a winter emergency,” Martha continued. So, we will have a handout with valuable resource information for each attendee that could be put in vacation rental homes.”

   Whether you’re a resident, homeowner, renter, realtor, business owner or retired, this meeting is geared toward everyone who deals with winter weather.

   It’s taken a great deal of organizing to make this event happen, and Martha is not only volunteering to put this together, but also volunteers at the Arnold Library. Martha organized a Firewise event last year that was well received and attended. “We are so grateful we have such a comprehensive team for Winter Wise Preparedness, and Independence Hall donated the venue for our event.”

   “We’re hoping to help all levels of the community be smart,” she summarized. “This is information you need to know! Let’s keep everyone safe and prepared. Hindsight never helps after an emergency.”

Cal Fire to ignite prescribed burns in Tuolumne, Calaveras counties

  Staff / Union Democrat / October 14, 2024

With fall kicking into gear, Cal Fire is planning to do several prescribed burning projects in Tuolumne and Calaveras counties beginning next week through the end of the month.

The projects encompass a total of 220 acres, with the goal of reducing fuels to slow the rate and spread of potential wildfire, as well as burning the reproduction of the brush that has been removed, Cal Fire said.

“Burning is anticipated to begin between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. and is expected to last six to eight hours each day contingent on favorable conditions,” the agency stated in a news release announcing the burns.

The public may see smoke or fire in the areas where burning is taking place. Cal Fire assures that personnel will patrol the ignited areas until they’re declared out.

The schedule for the burns is as follows:

Monday

• New Hogan Vegetation Management Program — Silver Rapids Unit, near Rancho Calaveras in Calaveras County, 25 acres.
• Central Hill VMP — Cal Fire Valley Springs Forest Fire Station near Valley Springs in Calaveras County, 5 acres.

Tuesday

• New Hogan VMP — Silver Rapids Unit, near Rancho Calaveras in Calaveras County, 25 acres.
• Central Hill VMP — Cal Fire Valley Springs Forest Fire Station near Valley Springs in Calaveras County, 5 acres.

Oct. 21

• Sardella Ranch — Near the town of Tuolumne in Tuolumne County, 80 acres.

Oct. 24

• Pine Mountain Lake VMP — Near Groveland in Tuolumne County, 40 acres.

Oct. 25

• Pine Mountain Lake VMP — Near Groveland in Tuolumne County, 40 acres.

For additional information on preparing for and preventing wildfires, go to www.readyforwildfire.org.

Prescribed burning in Calaveras Big Trees’ South Grove is delayed again

Guy McCarthy / Union Democrat / October 17, 2024

Town hall meeting

Calaveras Big Trees State Park will host a public meeting titled “Planned Fall 2024 Prescribed Burning” starting at 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 24, in the park’s Education Resources Room. The park’s address is 1170 Highway 4, uphill from Arnold. To register for the online version of the meeting, go online to https://bit.ly/3Y7MjSI. The last prescribed burns in the fire-threatened South Grove of Giant Sequoias at Calaveras Big Trees State Park were done in 2006 and 2007. For questions email Central Valley District Public Information Office Director Amber Sprock at amber.sprock@parks.ca.gov.

A tentative plan to start prescribed burning on 1,300 acres of the dangerously overgrown South Grove of Giant Sequoias, the largest stand of sequoias in Tuolumne County and the rest of the Mother Lode, has been pushed back a week to Oct. 28, Calaveras Big Trees State Park staff said Wednesday.

The largest monarch sequoias in the state park are found in the South Grove in Tuolumne County.

The last prescribed burns in the fire-threatened South Grove of Giant Sequoias at Calaveras Big Trees State Park were done in 2006 and 2007, California State Parks Central Valley District Superintendent Danielle Gerhart said in December 2022. Plans to do prescribed burning in the South Grove last year were postponed in November 2023 until this year. No prescribed burning has happened in the South Grove this year.

“With current conditions and resources, the updated target date for the South Grove prescribed burn is Oct. 28,” Calaveras Big Trees State Park staff said Wednesday. “All burning depends on weather and air quality conditions. If weather or vegetation conditions are not conducive for burning and smoke dispersal, State Parks will reschedule the treatment.”

Calaveras Big Trees State Park wants to share more information with the public about plans to do prescribed burning in the South Grove and to do so the park is hosting a “town hall style meeting” in the park’s  Education Resources Room, beginning at 6 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 24.

People with the California State Parks Central Valley District’s Natural Resources Team plan to be at the meeting to share information about planned prescribed burning this fall.

The meeting will be staged in person and offered online.

Plans for burning in the South Grove have been postponed multiple times in recent years.

Because the last prescribed burns in the South Grove happened more than 15 years ago, California State Parks, Cal Fire and contractors have spent several years preparing the South Grove Preserve for burning. Crews have removed large fuels and masticated material along a fire road that circles the South Grove, to create a control line around the 1,300-acre burn unit.

Crews also have prepared large giant sequoias by removing heavy fuels and organic matter from their bases to reduce chances of negative impacts from fire.

In May 2022, a contract firefighter was killed by a falling tree during preparations for burning in the South Grove. Darin Banks, 26, was assigned to an initial attack hand crew working to prepare an area for prescribed burning in the Tuolumne County section of Calaveras Big Trees State Park.

The South Grove is home to about 1,000 mature giant sequoias on the south side of the North Fork Stanislaus River. For comparison, the Tuolumne Grove of Giant Sequoias in Yosemite National Park is home to about two dozen mature giant sequoias.

The South Grove is also home to the ​​Louis Agassiz Tree, named for a Swiss-American biologist and geologist, the largest giant sequoia in the park and one of the largest in the world. It’s 250 feet tall and more than 25 feet in diameter 6 feet above the ground.

The South Grove stands between 4,500 and 5,000 feet elevation, the lowest average elevation of any giant sequoia grove. Giant sequoias in the South Grove Preserve range in age from 1,000 to 3,000 years old, according to the nonprofit Old-Growth Forest Network.

Giant sequoias have limited distribution, covering about 28,000 acres in about 70 groves on the western slopes of the Central and Southern Sierra Nevada. In 2020 and 2021, more than 10,000 large giant sequoias were killed during three wildfires in the Southern Sierra. That was 17% to 19% of all the giant sequoias in the world killed or mortally damaged in just two years.

California State Parks says protection and stewardship of giant sequoia groves at Calaveras Big Trees have been priorities since the park opened to the public in 1931.

 

Supervisors approve $1.2M contract change order for Wagon Trail project

Lance Armstrong / Calaveras Enterprise / October 16, 2024

The Calaveras County Board of Supervisors, on Oct. 8, approved a $1.2 million contract change order request from Sukut Construction for the Wagon Trail Highway 4 realignment project. This agenda item passed with a 3-2 vote, with Chair Jack Garamendi and Supervisor Benjamin Stopper voting in opposition.

Highway 4 is a major east-west connector through southern Calaveras County, and it provides access from the San Joaquin Valley to the Sierra Nevada mountains.

The two-phase, 6.5-mile Wagon Trail project is designed to improve safety in this high accident area, further economic development, and improve its use as a safety corridor. It extends from 2.6 miles east of Copperopolis to about 1.6 miles west of the Highway 4/Highway 49 junction in Angels Camp.

This project’s 3.2-mile first phase is located from Bonanza Mine Way to Appaloosa Road, and the second phase features work from Appaloosa Road for approximately 3 miles eastward toward Angels Camp.

The project has faced significant challenges due to the discovery of 17 archeological sites, necessitating change orders and increasing costs from $27 million to $53 million.

The board’s Oct. 8 approval of the $1.2 million change order came following a two-week delay.

During the supervisors’ Sept. 24 meeting, they agreed to continue this Wagon Trail agenda item to their next meeting for further discussion after hearing additional information regarding this project’s latest contract change order request.

Five weeks ago, the board voted 3-2 to approve a $2.1 million contract change order with Sukut Construction for continued excavation activities in sensitive areas along this realignment project. That change order is known as “Supplement No. 1.”

Last week’s approved $1.2 million contract change order is referred to as “Supplement No. 2.”

A third supplement could be requested next year.

Last March, the supervisors approved the initial change order of an estimated $855,000 to remove 90,000 cubic yards of material in the areas of a mechanically stabilized embankment wall construction project and Pool Station and Hunt roads. The wall was planned and approved as a change order to avoid a cultural site known as Buckeye Village in the Nassau Creek area.

The supplements followed after Craig Pedro, the county’s interim public works director, reported to the board in August that cost overruns of the original change order were discovered by the construction management team, “because the billings were not coming forth by the contractor.”

Pedro told the board last week that the original change order was “woefully underfunded.”

“We did find that out late,” he said. “We had a contractor not billing, and we had not been keeping our developing cost estimates along the way. That has changed and now we have a better lead on what this is going to take, by way of the dirt that needs to be moved and the cost to move it.”

The $2.1 million contract change order – Supplement No. 1 – covers the supplemental costs that had been incurred, as well as costs to move the project forward through the end of last month.

Supplement No. 2 allows work to continue through the end of the current construction season.

During the board’s Oct. 8 meeting, Pedro mentioned that work on this project resulted in the discovery that this area is very culturally rich, and that some people have described it as one of the oldest archeological sites in California.

Pedro noted that cultural discoveries in the project area gave a “rare glimpse” into the history of the local Miwok people, but also delayed the timeline and increased the cost of the project.

“The day of a fixed price on this (project) kind of got blown up with the discovery of all these different archeological sites, and that’s made it difficult, because we’re no longer in the area of a fixed project,” he said. “We’re now doing some open field running when it comes to the dirt work. That’s the bad news.”

Pedro also reported “good news,” noting that this excavation work is “getting close to the end.”

He stated that the $1.2 million provided through Supplement No. 2 is estimated to cover the excavation work of 51,000 cubic yards of material.

Pedro told the board that since their Sept. 24 meeting, the cost per cubic yard of this work had been reduced from an estimated $24.50 to about $17.

“We’re on track to save roughly $300,000, compared to what we were discussing when I was last here before you,” he said.

On the topic of a Supplement No. 3 request, Pedro mentioned that there is a possibility that it will never be presented to the board.

“If we continue to see these kinds of savings in cubic yard costs to move dirt, we may not need a change order No. 3,” he said. “We won’t know that until we get into next year and see what the work actually is for us.”

Stopper responded to Pedro’s announcement regarding the decreased cubic yard cost for the excavation work.

“I wouldn’t say savings,” he said. “I would say thank you for the reduction of the overrun, because I don’t see it as savings. But you know what? That’s $300,000 less that we’re over now.”

Stopper also shared his general opinion about the project, noting that he has not liked the project for “quite a few years.”

“Maybe it’s because it’s on the other side of the county, or I thought it was a good filter, so that the people that didn’t belong up here didn’t get up here, or vice versa,” he said. “But I do understand the safety reasons and the needs, but I still have a hard time supporting anything on overrun on costs with this (project).”

Supervisor Gary Tofanelli expressed support of Stopper’s comment before asking for an update on the material removal for this project.

Responding to that inquiry, Pedro mentioned that since the Sept. 24 meeting, 30,000 cubic yards of material had been removed.

“We were starting at about 51,000 (cubic yards) left that was anticipated in this change order,” he said. “Take 30,000 (cubic yards) away, you still have around 21,000 cubic yards anticipated to be done under this change order.”

The project’s manager, Howard Zabell, who joined the meeting online, provided additional information.

“The net estimated cubic yards remaining for the entire job, not just for this change order, not just for the season, is 46,420,” he said. “Again, it’s an estimate based the topo(graphy) from Aug. 26. And the estimated load counts, again, there will be a reconciliation at the end of the job – a topo reconciliation for the actual quantity.”

Vice Chair Martin Huberty expressed his desire to move forward with this project.

“Let’s push forward,” he said. “Got some time now to get as much done before the season changes.”

In another agenda item related to this project, the board, during the same meeting, voted 3-2 to approve a $578,262.81 maximum amount amendment and the extension of a contract with Dewberry Engineers for tribal monitoring and other costs through Dec. 31, 2025. The total amount of that contract is designated as not to exceed $3,379,288.

The dissenting votes were made by Garamendi and Stopper.

 

Public Invited to Scoping Meeting for Mokelumne Amador Calaveras Forest Resilience Project

SONORA, Calif. (Oct. 16, 2024) – The Stanislaus and Eldorado National Forest, working with the Upper Mokelumne Watershed Authority, would like to invite members of the public to two scoping sessions – one virtual (Oct. 21), one in person (Oct. 22) – for the Mokelumne Amador Calaveras Forest Resilience Project (MAC 2).

During the sessions, interested participants will get an understanding of the workshop’s objectives as well as learn the format for the evening. Presenters will provide an overview of the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA) process, an overview of the potential range of activities as well view maps to locate and place their homes/areas of concern and ask clarifying questions.

Folks interested in attending the October 21 virtual presentation can use the below link to access the meeting. The meeting will begin at 6 p.m.

Link to Virtual meeting: https://tinyurl.com/ybpf8nzh

The Oct. 22 presentation will be held at the Calaveras County Health & Human Services
509 E St Charles St, San Andreas, CA 95249 beginning at 6 p.m. and expected to last until 8 p.m.

MAC 2 is a 246,838-acre planning effort spanning two forests with 120,716 acres managed by the Amador Ranger District of the Eldorado National Forest, and 126,122 acres managed by the Calaveras Ranger District of the Stanislaus National Forest. Proposed actions will include fuel reduction and forest thinning treatments as well as aspen grove, riparian, stream, and meadow improvements and actions to reduce or mitigate the spread of non-native invasive plants. Treatments will be designed to retain Mature and Old Growth features.

To view the NOI and supporting documents visit the project website at: https://www.fs.usda.gov/project/eldorado/?project=65796

Any questions or concerns should be directed to Stanislaus National Forest Public Affairs Officer, Benjamin Cossel: benjamin.cossel@usda.gov or 209.288.6261.

 

Protests Grow as Corporate-Backed Biomass Projects Threaten Forests and Communities

Nick Engelfried / Waging Nonviolence / October 13, 2024

“Who will own the forests? Who will own the sky?” sang dozens of umbrella-wielding protesters as rain drizzled outside the World Forestry Center in Portland, Oregon on Sept. 25. Inside the building, timber company representatives, investors and others involved in deciding the fate of forest ecosystems were meeting for an event called CANOPY: Forests + Markets + Society.

Billed as “the premier annual event on institutional forestland investing,” CANOPY is a conference whose 2023 attendees included Weyerhaeuser, Boise Cascades, biomass energy giant Drax and J.P. Morgan. It was formerly called “Who Will Own the Forests?” and has drawn criticism from climate groups concerned about its focus on corporate and investor-led approaches to forest management. Last year, climate activists blockaded entrances to the event’s opening reception for over an hour.

Organizers of the 2024 conference not only changed the name, but erected chain-link fencing around the World Forestry Center to keep out anyone unable to pay the $1,660 registration fee.

“The title of the event has changed, but the conference has not,” Brenna Bell, forest campaign manager for 350-PDX, told the crowd chanting in the rain outside. “At it’s root this is a capitalist event, and the so-called climate solutions being promoted here are Wall Street backed and funded.”

Bell is part of the growing movement to defend forests from industries that hope to turn a profit by investing in carbon-dense ecosystems during the transition away from fossil fuels. Examples include firms involved in the controversial practice of buying forestlands as carbon “offsets,” and those trying to turn trees into “renewable” biomass energy. This last point is especially relevant for West Coast communities.

Global energy companies are currently pushing to build at least four major biomass pellet plants along the West Coast: two in Washington and two in California. The rhetoric they use to describe these projects includes phrases like “carbon neutral” and “renewable energy,” terms also featured prominently at the CANOPY conference.

However, for communities that will bear the brunt of the forest biomass industry’s environmental impacts, the benefits of these types of projects are far less clear than they appear in the rosy picture painted at CANOPY. In fact, up and down the West Coast the burgeoning biomass boom threatens to derail hard-won progress on climate, ecosystem protection and environmental justice.

Burning Forests

Gloria Alonso Cruz had recently started a job as the environmental justice advocacy coordinator for Little Manila Rising, a grassroots organization in South Stockton, California, when she heard that a company called Golden State Natural Resources wanted to build a wood pellet storage and export facility in the community.

“They hadn’t provided many details,” Alonso Cruz said. “But I attended a scoping meeting the company was putting on. All I knew going in was this was a project having to do with vegetation management that would lead to shipments coming through Stockton.”

To Alonso Cruz’s surprise, the virtual meeting was joined by activists from around the world, some as far away as Japan and Australia. Many spoke about negative impacts of the forest biomass industry in their countries.

“That’s how I got a more comprehensive picture of what this industry is and the greenwashing it does,” Alonso Cruz said.

In regions where the biomass industry is well established, like the U.S. South and British Columbia, forests have been denuded as companies like Maryland-based Enviva and U.K.-based Drax turned their wood into pellets. Now, Golden State Natural Resources, or GSNR, wants to build pellet plants in California’s Tuolumne and Lassen Counties.

Together, these plants would have the annual capacity to process almost two million tons of wood from forests in the Sierra Nevadas, where battles over logging have raged between environmental groups and timber companies for more than a century. Both plants would send their pellets to be exported out of the Port of Stockton.

“It would lead to more rail and truck traffic through our community, which already has some of the highest asthma rates in the country,” Alonso Cruz said.

At the other end of GSNR’s supply chain, environmental groups worry about where wood to supply the proposed plants will come from. Biomass companies typically insist they will mainly process “waste” wood like sawdust and slash leftover after logging. This claim is key to the industry’s assertion that it is an environmentally friendly, carbon neutral enterprise — a portrayal that doesn’t match the experience of communities close to where forest biomass companies have set up shop.

“I can guarantee additional logging will happen if this plant is built,” said Nick Joslin of the Mount Shasta Bioregional Ecology Center, which works to protect forests near where the Lassen County plant would be built. “They want high quality, dense wood because that gives them the biggest return on their investment. Their plant will increase logging on nearby national forest lands, and I don’t know anyone familiar with the project who’d say otherwise.”

In 2022, a whistleblower accused biomass company Enviva of turning large, whole trees into pellets in North Carolina, in violation of its own sustainability policies. In 2022, the BBC documented another biomass giant, Drax, sourcing trees for its mills from British Columbian old-growth forest. Drax, which has operated for years in Canada and the South, is also the main backer of a proposed pellet plant in Longview, Washington. Earlier this year, the company signed a memorandum of understanding with GSNR.

“Drax has shown themselves to be a bad actor,” Joslin said. “GSNR wants to portray themselves as a more responsible company, but they don’t have the money to bring these projects to completion on their own. So, they’ve sold out to a multinational corporation that basically does whatever it wants.”

Before any biomass company can break ground on a project in California or elsewhere on the West Coast, it will need a variety of permits from state and local governments entities. Climate, forest and environmental justice groups are already rallying their supporters to engage in this permitting process.

“We’re getting members of the public to submit comments, educating the community and trying to give people a voice on this issue,” said Megan Fiske of Ebbetts Pass Forest Watch, an organization based near Tuolumne County that opposes GSNR’s project there. In Washington State, where the other two West Coast pellet plants would be located, activists are mounting similar efforts.

The grassroots movement against forest biomass taking shape up and down the coast resembles the one that successfully beat back a flood of proposals to export coal, oil and natural gas from the same region last decade. Most of those fossil fuel export projects were eventually stopped, with communities at the points of extraction, transport and export speaking out against their local pollution and global climate impacts. Today, opponents of forest biomass are building similarly diverse coalitions.

In doing so, they are pushing back against an emerging, powerful industry that is endangering forests and action on climate change, even as it claims to be furthering the clean energy transition.

Trees as Energy

An irony of the push to develop forest biomass is that it’s largely a response to policies meant to combat climate change. At industry conferences like CANOPY, turning trees into energy is seen as a way for companies to take advantage of government subsidies for renewables established in European and East Asian countries.

The U.K. is perhaps the most prominent example of a country embracing biomass as a domestic energy source. Biomass is now the U.K.’s second-largest source of renewable energy, meeting 12.9 percent of the country’s electricity needs in 2021. Much of this energy comes from the massive Drax power plant in North Yorkshire, England, which last year finished fully transitioning to burn wood pellets instead of coal. Drax’s shift to wood has helped the U.K. eliminate coal from its energy mix, but at a cost to North American forests.

“This whole idea that we should cut down forests in California, use a lot of energy to send them overseas, burn the wood there, and that somehow this is a win for the climate, just doesn’t make sense,” Joslin said.

Burning trees for energy releases carbon into the atmosphere — more per unit combusted than coal, in fact. Still, biomass companies claim their product is carbon neutral because this CO2 can theoretically be reabsorbed if the trees are allowed to grow back. Even when forests harvested for biomass do regenerate, though, there is a lag time of decades during which heat-trapping gases remain in the atmosphere. This is known as the “carbon payback period,” and it is especially long when mature trees supply the fuel for biomass.

The biomass industry also argues it will remove wood from forests that would otherwise burn during Western states’ increasingly long, dry, fire seasons. However, the science on forest thinning as a means to reduce fire is inconclusive — and to the extent that it results in removing large, whole trees that are relatively fire resistant, it may actually do more harm than good.

“As someone who lives in a fire prone area myself, one of my biggest frustrations with GSNR’s project is it’s wasting time and money without fixing the real problem,” Fiske said. “Meanwhile it’s sending us backward rather than forward in terms of carbon emissions.”

In certain regions of the U.S., such as the Northeast, state laws that classify biomass as clean energy have given rise to a domestic forest biomass industry. However, in most parts of the country the financial incentives to turn forests into energy come mainly from overseas. Biomass companies like Drax and GSNR don’t qualify for major subsidies under U.S. federal law — at least not yet.

Drax competitor Enviva has submitted an application to the U.S. Treasury Department to receive clean energy tax breaks under climate provisions of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act. Companies aren’t required to disclose publicly if they are applying for these incentives, so it’s unclear how many others in the biomass industry may be doing so. However, recent moves by Drax, such a decision announced last year to establish a North American headquarters in Houston, suggest the company is positioning itself to play a bigger role in the U.S. energy market.

Regardless of whether biomass companies eventually receive additional subsidies for generating “clean” energy in the U.S., the fight over industrialization of forestlands in the name of climate solutions is shaping up to be a major front for the climate movement on the West Coast in the years ahead.

“Now that Drax is involved, they can take advantage of global financing and private equity to support their biomass projects,” Joslin said. “To them, this is just a money-making deal for investors. It’s not about the health of forests or the climate at all.”

 

Poets! Towers of God!

By Rubén Darío
1867 – 1916
translated from the Spanish by Thomas Walsh and Salomón de la Selva

Poets! Towers of God
Made to resist the fury of the storms
Like cliffs beside the ocean
Or clouded, savage peaks!
Masters of lightning!
Breakwaters of eternity!

Hope, magic-voiced, foretells the day
When on the rock of harmony
The Siren traitorous shall die and pass away,
And there shall only be
The full, frank-billowed music of the sea.

Be hopeful still,
Though bestial elements yet turn
From Song with rancorous ill-will
And blinded races one another spurn!
Perversity debased
Among the high her rebel cry has raised.
The cannibal still lusts after the raw,
Knife-toothed and gory-faced.

Towers, your laughing banners now unfold.
Against all hatreds and all envious lies
Upraise the protest of the breeze, half-told,
And the proud quietness of sea and skies …

This poem is in the public domain.