In Northern Mich. locals worry biomass harvesting will harm tourism, recreation

Michigan’s northern forests are being eyed as a source for renewable energy, but some worry that using forests for energy will disrupt other forest functions and harm tourism and recreation.

One fifth of the land in Michigan is state forest, and each year the Dept. of Natural Resources, now the Dept. of Natural Resources and Environment, auctions off around 55,000 acres for logging.

State Forester Cara Bouchard compared the trees in the state forest to a savings account and said that Michigan was only using a portion of the interest, or new growth, each year.

“In general removals in the state are about 1/3 of the growth each year,” she said.

She said that plenty more could be harvested without harm and some of this could help meet state energy needs.

“The state through the governor and the legislature has indicated that alternative energies including cellulosic biomass are a priority for the state and the [Renewable Portfolio Standards] all show this,” she said.

However, harvesting for biomass could look a lot different than harvesting for other purposes because all parts of the tree can be burned for energy. If biomass harvesters remove small branches and brush this leaves less nutrients and less coarse woody debris on the forest floor.

Bouchard said that she has developed a draft guidance on biomass harvesting that would require that up to 15 percent of tree tops be left in the forest to provide nutrients and shelter.

But not everyone is reassured that biomass guidelines are sufficient protection.

“These guidelines are better than no guidelines,“ said Mark White, a Duluth-based forest ecologist for the Nature Conservancy, “but having guidelines doesn’t mean it is environmentally or ecologically stable.”

White emphasized that biomass harvesting is a more intensive use of forests than conventional logging, and he said that reports from areas in Scandinavia that have practiced biomass harvesting indicate that it is associated with a significant decline in biodiversity.

“You have to think about forested landscaped from a historical perspective. If you think about biodiversity and functioning of landscapes it’s changed a lot…Our forests have already become greatly simplified from 150 years ago.”

White said that “whole suites” of organisms depend on the insects, fungi and small mammals associated with coarse woody debris on the forest floor, and we don’t even know what a lot of the species are that require these habitats.

“I think we need to be careful about how we proceed with this,“ he said. “We really don’t understand what the longer term effects would be but we are going ahead with it anyway.”

Wood is an expensive fuel to ship, and forest products professionals say that wood for new power plants in Northern Michigan would come from within a 75 miles radius.

Cadillac already has one wood-burning power plant, another has been proposed in Mancelona, and the municipal power company in Traverse City is considering up to four new wood-powered electricity plants.

As locals contemplate a shift to wood generated power, some are expressing concern that current state forest management practices are flawed, and that biomass harvesting could worsen the impact of logging on outdoor recreation and tourism.

June Thaden is secretary of the Grand Traverse Hiking Club, which maintains the local section of the North Country Trail, a hiking path that crosses the much of North America.

“East of Guernsey Lake there’s a portion of the trail that we can’t even find because there was a clearcut,” she said.

Thaden said that the state sometimes mandates logging buffer zones to protect recreational areas, “but even if they specify that in the contract, it doesn’t always happen.”

Sid Hamill, owns Ranch Rudolph, a 195 acre outdoor resort south of Traverse City that features canoeing and horseback riding and snowmobile rides through the state forest.

Hamill said that semis are rolling out of the state forest around his ranch about every 20 minutes with trees bound for the wood-burning power plant in Cadillac and that he’s concerned that new plants will put more pressure on the forests.

He said that the logging is already starting to impact snowmobile trails.

“It does make it confusing. We go out and sign the trails. We spend a lot of time brushing the trails, and trimming the trees and then you go out there and the trees are gone.”

“I do realize that we have to come up with other sources for electricity,” he said, “but I’d hate to see them build a plant and find out they’ve already taken all the easy wood.”

Robert Froese, Professor of Forest Resources at Michigan Tech University, prepared a report on biomass fuel availability for Traverse City Light and Power.

He cautioned that his calculations are not recommendations but best estimates of feedstock availability within an evolving scenario of how much wood is harvested.

Froese said that Traverse City would need 40 percent of the existing forestry residuals within a 75 mile radius in order to generate 29 megawatts of power. With 36 percent of the available low grade pulp wood, he estimated, the city could generate 17 megawatts. To put that in perspective, on average it takes 12 megawatts to power 10,000 homes in a given year.

Froese acknowledged that if some of the other biomass plants planned for the region come online, competition could become more intense, but he maintained that more wood could be harvested from the region without harm to the forests.

And though so far the discussion about biomass energy in Northern Michigan has been focused on using wood from state forests, there are other options.

Froese said that the city could generate 69 megawatts of power from crops such as switch grass or fast growing trees if 20 percent of the area’s retired agricultural land was dedicated to such biomass energy crops.

This option has the benefits of defined transportation costs, since the crops would be planted near the power plant, and of creating new jobs in the farming sector.

“The discussion of is there enough wood for everybody raises the profile of forests,” Froese said, adding that he believes Michiganders need to give some more thought how they want to treat the states forest resources.

“We have some opportunities to think rationally about how we manage forest and non forest resources to provide a more even supply of service and products to people — wood, paper, energy, recreation, hunting, biodiversity, conservation. We do have the opportunity to think things through and do things sensibly.”

In Traverse City, where members of the Light and Power Board hope to decide whether to move forward on biomass power spring, there is growing public pressure for a broader conversation on the implications of choosing wood over coal and for taking the time to weigh the pros and cons of the various alternatives.