Group calls for hearing on biomass provisions of Wolverine permit

People in tourism-dependent northern Michigan should have more opportunity to weigh in on Wolverine Power Cooperative’s plan to rely on area forests for part of the fuel for a power plant in Rogers City, a Traverse City-based group said this week.

Michigan Citizens for Energy, Environment and Economy (MC3E) is asking the Dept. of Environmental Quality to reopen the public comment period on a draft air permit for the plant and hold another hearing to allow for additional input on Wolverine’s plan to burn at least 255,000 tons of green wood from within 75 miles of the plant each year.

MCE3 claims that details about the scale of the biomass component of the project were not made available in public participation documents presented by the state.

“Citizens need additional time to assess the impact of burning hundreds of thousands of tons of green wood annually on not only air quality, but the health of those living near the plant, and our northern Michigan economy,” said MCE3 co-founder Jeff Gibbs. “The burning of tens of millions of tons of trees over the life of the power plant could be a severe blow.”

The DEQ — which is under court order to reconsider its 2010 denial of Wolverine’s air permit application — is required to give the public a chance comment on new aspects of the permit before approving it.

The agency published some details about the permit online in an April 13 document that gave notice of a 30 day comment period, but it did not publicize the opportunity to comment until May 12 and it scheduled its public informational session and hearing on the permit for May 19, the very last day of the comment period.

DEQ’s draft permit for Wolverine specifies requires that the company generate 5 percent of its 600 megawatts of power with biomass but the documents provided to the public do not describe the volume of wood that will be needed to meet that requirement.

“It is a big amount,” DEQ permit engineer Rob Lemrouex acknowledged in an interview with Michigan Messenger last week.

Lemroeux consulted the company’s permit application and specified that the company plans to burn 255,000 tons of green wood. Michigan Messenger reported this fact on the final day of the comment period.

Gibbs said that Wolverine‘s planned 75 mile woodshed would consume a vast chunk of Michigan forest.

“That’s a circle from the UP to Gaylord encompassing about 8,000 square miles of forest,“ he said, “There are only 23,000 square miles of forest in the entire state.”

“I am not surprised that details only emerged at the 11th hour. Biomass proponents know that once people become aware that biomass is nothing more than incineration of forests under the banner of ‘green’ energy they have turned against it all across the nation.”

Last year Traverse City Light and Power tabled plans to develop a wood-fired power plant after a grassroots campaign initiated by MC3E turned public opinion against biomass generation.

“[T]hose who love clean air, blue-ribbon trout streams, bird-watching, hunting, fishing and camping need to look closely at the impact of felling trees and forests for biomass burning,“ Gibbs and MC3E co-founder Monica Evans said in a statement on Monday. “Business owners that depend on these and other activities from snowmobiling to cross-country skiing might want to consider the impact of tens of thousands of acres of additional logging and how real estate values may be impacted.”

Staff in the air permits section of the DEQ were in training this week and unavailable to comment on MCE3’s request for additional public comment time.

The DEQ is expected to reach a final decision on the permit by the end of next month.

Wolverine spokesman Ken Bradstreet told the
Alpena News that rising construction costs and expected legal challenges may keep the company from building the plant even if a permit is issued.