Editor’s note: This op-ed is by Bill Kropelin, the chief forester at the McNeil Generating Station in Burlington.
VTDigger recently published a press release authored by paid advocate Josh Schlossberg about a mapping project carried out by a little- known organization calling itself Energy Justice Network. The report suggests that biomass fuel sourcing for McNeil Generating Station in Burlington is now made “transparent” through scans of Vermont Fish & Wildlife Department data obtained and “replicated by hand using Google Maps,” a process of questionable accuracy.
Schlossberg neglects to point out that his source of information consists of files of sites approved by Fish & Wildlife for biomass sourcing by McNeil Station and includes many sites from which no biomass has ever been obtained by McNeil. This “oversight” leads to an inflated conclusion.
Schlossberg goes on to say that Fish & Wildlife has been “tasked by the Vermont State Legislature” to pre-approve plans to fuel McNeil. The truth is that the Vermont Public Service Board made the review of harvest plans by Fish & Wildlife a part of the McNeil Station’s certificate of public good in 1983. Since that time, many hundreds of forest management plans, most if not all of which would have included wood harvesting even if McNeil Station did not exist, have been reviewed for potential negative impacts on critical wildlife and wetland habitats. McNeil’s forestry staff works collaboratively with Fish & Wildlife to protect critical habitats and adhere to wood harvesting standards that far exceed any other commercial market in the state, including dozens of schools, Middlebury College and the State of Vermont itself.
During this time it has produced 5.6 million megawatt hours of renewable energy for New England residents and businesses, pumped over $170 million in fuel purchases into the regional economy, supported over 90 jobs in the forest products and transportation industries, paid in nearly $30 million in taxes and helped hundreds of landowners pay their property taxes through sales of wood and maintain their properties as working forests.
The press release raises the question, “Can you imagine what the impact of McNeil will be during its entire lifetime?” Let’s take a look. McNeil has been operating since May of 1984 (29 years). During this time it has produced 5.6 million megawatt hours of renewable energy for New England residents and businesses, pumped over $170 million in fuel purchases into the regional economy, supported over 90 jobs in the forest products and transportation industries, paid in nearly $30 million in taxes and helped hundreds of landowners pay their property taxes through sales of wood and maintain their properties as working forests. The wood harvests have been monitored by natural resource professionals representing the landowners, the State of Vermont and Burlington Electric Department.
McNeil Station’s use of wood represents a significant market for wood but is small compared to other markets for low-grade wood, which the state estimates totaled over 1 million tons in 2010. Residential firewood composed 785,000 tons and emitted 100 times the particulate emissions compared to McNeil on a per ton of wood burned basis.
The State of Vermont and the Biomass Energy Resource Center studied the availability of wood for energy in 2011. They concluded that using moderate assumptions there are about 900,000 tons per year of currently unused growth of low-grade wood in Vermont’s forests. That figure could be as high as 1.9 million tons per year. Instead of relying on oversized icons on a Google map, people can get a real sense of the impacts McNeil has had by taking a favorite drive and observing for themselves Vermont’s working forest.
