Override the governor's biomass vetoes

To the editor:

The governor’s vetoes of Senate Bills 365 and 446 must be overturned. Here is why:  Stand on any hilltop or mountain in New Hampshire and what do you see in every direction you look?  Trees, we have millions of trees that make up our New Hampshire landscape, 70 percent of which is privately owned. 

As a forester with 40 years of field experience, I can tell you that two out of every three trees you see will never make a sawlog tree. Their best and highest economic use is as firewood, pulp, or biomass. They have been allowed to accumulate in our forests because there has not been a consistent and readily available market for low-grade wood until now. 

In the mid-1980s, the steadily rising cost of foreign oil, the advent of mechanized harvesting equipment, and proactive policies allowed several small wood-fired power plants to spring up around the state. 

Finally, landowners had a steady market to get rid of "junk wood," and harvest summaries showed that 60 percent, 70 percent and 80 percent or more of the volume harvested was low-grade wood.  Biomass markets are also critical in addressing massive damage caused by ice storms, micro bursts, and insect outbreaks.

As we try to transition off of fossil fuels, keep in mind, ALL forms of energy have some sort of negative environmental impacts. One can debate the volatile pros and cons of each energy source with little consensus. However, I believe, lost in the discussion is one very important and irrefutable fact: The energy source with the smallest negative footprint AND the most societal benefits, when practiced intelligently and responsibly, is biomass!

As low-grade trees are removed from our forests they increase the proportion of high-quality, high-value sawlog trees that increase profits to landowners, towns through increased timber tax revenue, and help loggers with weekly cash flow to meet payroll and bank payments.  Revenue from timber harvesting helps to stabilize forestland ownership, preventing the suburbanization of our woods.

Unlike coal mines, oil fields, hydro, solar and wind farms that degrade land with open pits and toxic materials or fragment forests with development, forests that provide us 10 percent, 20 percent or more of our energy needs from renewable biomass material also:

 • Provide us with the best drinking water possible

 • Help purify the atmosphere of pollutants

 • Add oxygen to the atmosphere

 • Absorb and store carbon

 • Prevent soil erosion

 • Cool local areas through evapotranspiration

 * Give us places to recreate.

Biomass energy markets, when carefully planned and managed is a way to have your cake and eat it too. But it will all come to a crashing halt if the six biomass plants in New Hampshire are forced to close because our governor vetoed Senate Bills 365 and 446. With your help, we can get our representatives to override the veto when they vote on Sept. 13. Please call or write your representative(s).

Geoffrey T. Jones

Stoddard