Residents from across the state gathered yesterday at the State House on Beacon Hill asking Governor Patrick and Lt. Governor Murray to limit ratepayer-funded incentives for biomass plants that burn wood for electricity. In the past two years residents from across the state have signed over 135,000 petitions, postcards, letters and emails asking for stronger laws.
Chris Matera of Massachusetts Forest Watch asserts the administration has caved to the biomass and timber industries by "further weaking the already weak proposed wood burning biomass public subsidy regulation." Matera points to a letter by leading scientists written to Congressional leaders that states "clearing or cutting forests for energy, either to burn trees directly in power plants or to replace forests with bio-energy crops has the net effect of releasing otherwise sequestered carbon into the atmosphere, just like the extraction and burning of fossil fuels."
The proposed regulation was initiated in 2009 as a means of including biomass within the States' Renewable Portfolio Standards. The Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER) filed its draft regulation on May 3, 2011. In June, the State legislature's Joint Committee on Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy issued a statement that casts the regulation in a negative light.
The statement, written by the Senate and House chairs of the Committee (Benjamin Downing and John D Keenan, respectively) assert that "as currently presented, the guideline treats all eligible biomass as residues, using the same carbon accounting assumptions for both whole trees and tops and branches. In effect, this treats the harvest of whole trees for biomass as carbon-neutral, even though that practice would have a much different carbon profile."
DOER has known this for some time, however. In a June 2010 press release, DOER claims " Now that we know that electricity from biomass harvested from New England forests is not 'carbon neutral' in a timeframe that makes sense given our legal mandate to cut greenhouse gas emissions, we need to re-evaluate our incentives for biomass."
Why then, if Matera's and others among the groups against this regulation assertion is false, would DOER not only allow for biomass to be considered "carbon neutral" but for that matter allow for biomass harvest to increase? A key modification of the new regulation is changing the amount of biomass material eligible to be removed from a harvest site. Previously, the material were limited to 15 percent by weight of the total amount of material harvested from the site for forest products (lumber, pulp wood, firewood, etc.).
The 15 percent limit was based on a recommendation that 50 percent of the tops and branches from harvested trees should be left in the forest to maintain levels of nutrients in the soil important to the health of the forests. DOER documents assert that "Based on comments and further research, DOER has concluded that the 15 percent limit is arbitrary and insufficiently based on science regarding soil nutrient needs. Instead, the amount of biomass that should be left in the forest varies depending on the existing soil conditions. That is, for some poor quality soils, all biomass material should be left in the forest to encourage soil nutrient retention, and in some good soils the need to leave biomass material behind is not important for soil nutrient retention."
A DOER spokesperson told this Examiner they were not able to discuss what those comments consisted of or who conducted that research until after the final regulation is released this Fall. However, Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources Commissioner Mark Sylvia, whose office is reviewing the regulations issued the following statement:
“We understand that groups on both sides of this issue are awaiting the release of these regulations. The regulations are under review and we expect to finalize them by early this fall. Both the department and the Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs are focused on filing regulations that help the Commonwealth meet its reduction targets and adequately protect our forest health and our economy.”
This examiner interviewed multiple residents at the press conference yesterday. Watch the video to see these interviews and clips from the press conference.
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