WA DNR "Greenwashing" Biomass Study

Q13 Fox TV News Interview Slams

Goldmark, DNR and Biomass Study

Submitted to Shelton Blog by Duff Badgley Mason County Progressive

-- NO BIOMASS BURN PRESS RELEASE --

ANOTHER FRONT IN GOLDMARK’S WAR AGAINST
OUR FORESTS, OUR CLIMATE, AND OUR LIVES

July 14--Calling the not-yet-finished “biomass inventory study” from WA DNR a “greenwash” with a foregone conclusion, No Biomass Burn said the study will recommend increased takings from our forests to fuel highly polluting biomass and biofuel projects.

“We see this as another front in DNR chief Peter Goldmark’s war on our forests, our climate, and our lives,” said No Biomass Burn president Duff Badgley.

Biomass combustion emits more carbon dioxide stoking climate change, more nitrogen oxides causing asthma and ozone, and more lethal particulate matter pollution than coal combustion, per unit of energy produced, Badgley said EPA-accepted studies show.

The University of Washington Forestry School conducting the study for DNR is notorious for its pro-logging industry bias. Garbage-in, garbage-out, said Badgley. And DNR itself, under Goldmark, has become a zealots’ hotbed relentlessly promoting biomass projects ranging from incinerators to the new jet fuel law that one prominent activist called ‘lunacy”.

Citizen activists across the state have been fighting 7 proposed biomass incinerators that, if built, would have burned 2.0M tons of forest wood per year.

Activists have defeated two of the proposed biomass incinerators—one outside Shelton in Mason County and one proposed for the campus of Evergreen State College that had the backing of DNR.

“That leaves us fighting 5 biomass incinerators,” Badgley said, “totaling 1.3M tons of forest wood burned each year. There is nothing remotely sustainable in that figure.”

One of those 5 campaigns is opposing the Seattle Steam biomass incinerator now burning waste ‘urban wood’ just 2 blocks from Pike Place Market in Seattle. Another campaign is fighting the Nippon biomass incinerator proposed in Port Angeles that is a DNR pilot project.

“DNR treats our forests as vast tree plantations, Badgley said,“ to be sprayed with synthetic fertilizers and lethal herbicides like dioxin, then clear-cut with ever-increasing frequency.”

Badgley predicted the DNR study will recommend more removal of forest biomass with these impacts:

1. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from burning forest wood will soar;
2. Forests soils will suffer nutrient loss vital to their renewal;
3. Forest wildlife will be deprived of habitat;
4. Increased sedimentation of forest streams will result;
5. GHGs from additional equipment working in forests will increase.

“Those 5 biomass incinerators we are fighting,” said Badgley, “would emit 1.4M tons of CO2 each year.”

CONTACT:
Duff Badgley
No Biomass Burn
duff@nobiomassburn.org
www.nobiomassburn.org

SHELTON BLOG NOTE:

This No Biomass Burn press release is being circulated in conjunction with a Q13 News on-camera interview with Duff Badgley on 7/14/11. The DNR biomass study story will air next week on Q13 in a morning slot. The exact times, when known, will be posted here.