CARB=California Air Resources Board
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The biomass facility is Alturas is also closed. CARB ?
My mistakeā¦ the biomass in Adin is closed. Donāt know if there is one in Alturas
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Here is a list of Biomass plants I found online. you can change the year on a drop down box and see how we have lost a few plants every year
https://ww2.energy.ca.gov/almanac/renewables_data/biomass/index_cms.php
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We have Co Gen in both Cottonwood and Burney. Both plants are a boon to the local economy. Homeowners can take green material from yards and the log decks are full of cull logs. If youāre not familiar with the process hereās a short article.
https://www.spi-ind.com/Operations/CoGeneration
Weāve simply got to find a way to reduce this biomass and if we can make electricity out of it and put people back to work it seems like a win win win proposition. Seems like Paradise Fire Safe should look for a grant to biomass harvest for a mile around the communities of Paradise and Magalia. Shasta County got a LARGE grant from CCI to build the HWY 44 fuelbreak.
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Sounds good. But Paradise cannot find someone to take the logs and slash now . The only place we had for green waste closed due to contractual problems getting someone to do it . The log deck was huge when it stopped. Yet they still demand all properties are cleared . I know some folks on the council I will look into if a Biomass plant has been considered . But I will put money on that is a no go. We couldnāt even agree on an area to place the logs that were being harvested. There is a lot of NIMBY in Butte County as opposed to Shasta county I think.
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was up ;there last year dropping trees for SB Convention. disposal of trees was an issue then and I could only guess that is continuing until dispersal of sticks finds a useā¦???
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Hopefully getting the deadwood out of Paradise gets some attention soon. There were at least a dozen trees down or the top 30 feet snapped off within 100 yards of me on Thursday night in the wind event. Been 2 years and the trees are rotting in place. Flying firewood is everywhere . And still we are waiting for contracts to be finished so they can start. The process is so slow to get anything down here. I live in a decaying urban forest now. If they cannot get things done here expeditiously how do I expect them to get anything done in the forest where few ever see the carnage. A biomass plant in the area seems like another pig flying pipe dream
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And before I forget @LACoCB , thanks for coming up and helping . We deeply appreciate everyone who came to lend a hand.
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There is no biomass plant in Adin. You are probably referring to Big Valley Power in Bieber and itās been closed for 10 years
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Still there for you brotherā¦SBDR has more plans for coming in to help with tree issueā¦hope to return as body allows.
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They say by the time this is said and done they will harvest around 1 million trees. So we certainly look forward to your return. Tree removal has gotten pretty pricey to do if you can even find someone to do it. We took down enough trees around us to make over 2500 square feet of split,stacked wood Wonder how they will deal with that number of logs and accompanying slash that will be created here.
With the rise of solar and wind power Biomass plants become a expensive alternative. By the time we get all those trees down it will just be a pile of gray wood any way. Donāt if that has any value at all.
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Shasta is no smarter than Butte. There has been very little rehab in Whiskeytown. This photo is Shasta Bally Mtn just above Carr Powerhouse. Fuel load has to be in excess of 250 tons/acre. Biomass harvest is more expensive than wind or solarā¦ weāve got to do something ! Otherwise our entire forest land will be like the Klamath NF where they have ongoing fires every summer for resource benefits. OldCDF I suggest you have town council look into the California Climate Investment Grants. They have grant money for fire prevention projects ( fuel breaks) why not fund biomass harvest ? http://www.caclimateinvestments.ca.gov/funding-for-local-governments
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There used to be an operational biomass plant in auberry where they have the helibase set up, when PGE and edison were cutting beetle killed trees they brought them to that lot. There was talk of reopening the plant but talk is real easy to find unlike money. It opened in 86 and closed a few years after the mill.
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Yes, my mistake.
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Most of the biomass plant in Auberry is gone. Would take a heck of an investment to get it and the mill up and running again. Not to mention, the private owner would have to buy off on utilizing the property for that purpose again. With that said, there needs to be a reckoning on this front, both logging and large scale burning. If anything good comes out of these massive fires this year it should be a pushback against the poor land management practices that have been put in place for the past 4 decades. I know there is many of us on the ground and a lot in management positions that know this is true. The fact that in 2020 with the information, technological advancements and equipment we have at our disposal now that we cannot begin to properly manage and harvest our forests. Not only through salvage logging post fire, but through large scale thinning and burning operations to begin to curb and eventually help prevent these events. I dont know what it will take, a grassroots movement, or whatever but this year needs to not fade away when the snow flies. The fact that the beetle was allowed to ravage like it did, the fact that our forests are so overstocked its ridiculous, the fact that private land owners cannot properly manage their land without fear of litigation needs to change. The Shaver Lake area has started a resiliency foundation through the areaās Historical Society. It is a start at bringing the area back to a healthy forest and to educate the residents and youth of being an actual steward of the forest. I hope other areas are doing the same. One of the members of this foundation is John Mount, a retired forester for SoCal Edison, who managed the private Edison lands around Shaver Lake (20,000 acres) for decades. He has been quite verbal in the local area news since the Creek fire, I hope his message carries to Sacramento and Washington. His field tested and proven practices in timber stand management and use of fire is a model that should be looked at in all areas of the Sierra Nevadas and adapted to fit for local forests. His book Torching Conventional Forestry: The Artful Application of Science is a must read. The man did it on the ground for years, brought species back to the area that hadnāt been seen in decades, allowed for human traffic and recreation and paid for it through logging. Anyway, I hope we continue this conversation and more so I hope we actually organize and do something about it.
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are there any wood pellet plants in California? talking to a store in my area, they say there may be a āshortageā this yearā¦
@burnit I will look into seeing if the town council or fire council have looked into this. I already sent your link to a friend on the fire council this evening to see what kind of an answer I get. I agree that we need to do something. The status quo is just not working for me at this point. We just keep doing the same things over and over and expect a different result. Just trying to make the mistake better crazy thinking. how do you do that? I think Whiskeytown is Nation Park Service so Shasta county has no say so. I was stationed my first fire season with CDF at French Gulch . We marveled then at how the Park Service looks at fire. Sort of a let it burn mentality with little or no rehab . All part of the natural ebb and flow of the forest.
Sir you have said a lot here. I do hope that this summer does have some good outcome derived from it. So much has been lost . Millions of acres of timber lost. More Homes lost. More lost lives and lively-hoods lost or changed forever . Over litigation and activist judges and special interest groups have created a landscape we can no longer live in . I found myself ordering a copy of this book from the historical society for a look see myself.
In the late 1970ās I had the opportunity to work with a Indian fire crew from Hoopa . They talked of how Fire is Medicine . Burning the forest to take invasive plants out of the forest and provide the sun and rain for other plants to flourish. Forest management is a cultural thing for them going back
to the beginning. Set smaller fires now to stop larger ones later.
Years later in the mid 90ās I first heard of the Quincy Library Groupā¦The group was a proposed alliance between USFS, Timer Industry and the environmentalist concerns of the community. they created the ācommunity Stability Proposalā.
It resulted in āQuincy Library Group Forest Recovery and Economic Stability Act of 1997ā
It had itās problems with perceived over management. But in general it worked. So I have seen grass roots movements work to some degree. Part of what I have pursued this discussion thread is to better understand the problem at hand in regards to Salvage logging and other methods of dealing with the aftermath of fire. I am a huge proponent of Prevention before the fact and realize things like post fire salvage logging is a huge part stopping the next fire. I have seen some excellent points brought forth and it has given me a look into the mechanics of how we got to this point in time. If anyone is interested in a more in depth look at the Quincy Library Group here is a link to a case study
http://qlg.org/pub/miscdoc/casestudy.htm
Along with you I hope we continue this discussion. I really do want to understand the different angles and players involved . Gets to be a pretty convoluted and complicated subject. I have grown weary of fire . I would love to live up here for the next 25 years. But another wind driven fire coming up the canyon just does not make my day. The thought that in a few years the pump will be primed and ready to go again just pisses me off. So I want to understand the problems at hand better and see where that takes me
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One of the best examples of post fire management in my area is on Hatchet Mountain, between Redding and Burney.
The Fountain fire in 1990 burned about 64,000 acres. Roseburg lumber salvage logged the West facing slope and replanted. The average person would never know a fire happened there. These fires donāt have to change our wildlands forever.
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