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Since its shift from pilot program to federal tool for forest management in 2003, stewardship contracting has been slow to pick up much momentum. As a means to manage forests at a minimal cost and with maximum public involvement, contractors continue to have mixed feelings over whether the exchange of labor for the timber and biomass cleared is worth the costs and regulatory hassle.
While stewardship contracts with the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service have experienced some growth, observers say it is the increased interest in biomass as an alternative source for power generation that may enable stewardship contracts to reach their full potential.
Under revised law in 2003, the two agencies may enter "end result stewardship contracting" arrangements with local groups or communities that allow the application of revenues from timber harvesting to habitat restoration projects. The rule has prompted both applause and skepticism, with some seeing the rule as an excuse to expand timber sales and salvage while others see it as a means to give some badly needed attention to federal lands neglected by budgetary restraints. As part of the contracts, communities and nongovernment organizations that enter into stewardship contracting agreements hire contractors to clear brush and small trees that can fuel wildfires in exchange for allowing the harvesting of valuable timber and other forest biomass.
But the quest for healthy forests is intersecting with another green goal: alternative power generation. A growing number of communities, states and companies are showing interest in developing alternative power sources that run on biomass like wood from forest thinnings.
Last week, Oregon Gov. Ted Kulongoski (D) announced that California-based DG Energy would construct a biomass power plant in Lakeview, Ore., that will be powered by biomass from overstocked forests in the region. The $20 million facility, which the state claims will become an integrated solution to the state's forest health, will produce nearly 100,000 megawatt-hours of power annually.
To be built next to Collins Pine Co.'s Fremont Sawmill in Lakeview, the plant will draw from nearby BLM and Forest Service lands for biomass that would otherwise have to be cleared because of the high risk of forest fires. The Forest Service is already looking into the development of a stewardship contract so that the plant can draw biomass from 490,000 acres in the Lakeview Federal Stewardship Unit that is part of the Freemont National Forest.
Lake County resources initiative director Jim Walls said the biomass plant would "provide the necessary infrastructure to restore the local forests and rangelands back to natural conditions, something many other communities in the West have totally lost."
Mixed success
Starting with two projects for 300 acres in 2003, the Forest Service last year entered into 92 agreements totaling approximately 57,500 acres. The BLM approved a total of 57 projects last year for a total of 18,871 acres.
In December, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation closed out 2006 with two habitat stewardship agreements with the Forest Service and BLM that will bring nearly 260,000 acres of federal properties in Wyoming and Montana under its management for 10 years. The agreements involve 85,000 acres of Forest Service lands bordering the Blackfoot Clearwater Wildlife Management Area, near Ovando, Mont., and 174,000 acres of BLM land near Pinedale, Wyo. (Greenwire, Jan. 4).
The two projects are designed to bolster forest health, including the size and diversity of aspen stands, as well as to improve elk and mule habitats in the region. About 12,000 acres of the BLM lands are slated for treatment, while the Forest Service estimates that about 20,000 to 25,000 acres of the total 85,000-acre area would be treated in projects over the next 10 years as a result of this agreement.
This acreage only represents a small portion of the millions of acres of federal lands in need of treatments, forest managers say.
"We've had mixed success, but overall we're improving every year," said Kathy Radigan, the BLM's national stewardship coordinator. She explained that the stewardship contracts have been limited in scope in part because of the difficulty to attract contractors to contracts for biomass when they could simply bid on timber sales. Additionally, the timber and biomass in a potential stewardship area may not be worth the work to treat it.
Future in cogeneration
As the search continues for sustainable alternatives to coal and nuclear power, stewardship contracts are being seen as an ideal method to protect forests from wildfire while providing the biomass needed for cogeneration power.
"The growth of new markets for woody biomass for energy applications, and the availability of significant new private capital for investment in renewable energy production, opens the door to important new opportunities to facilitate improved forest management on both public and private lands," said V. Alaric Sample, president of the Pinchot Institute for Conservation, in the organization's winter 2007 newsletter.
But using forest thinnings and other biomass from stewardship projects for power generation is not as simple as it may seem.
Steve Castillo of the BLM's Prineville, Ore., District explains that unless a biomass power plant is close to a stewardship contract area, it is not cost effective to use forest thinnings as fuel because the cost of converting and transporting the biomass exceeds the potential profit. "It's just not worth the diesel to haul it there," he said.
At the 2,200-acre LaPine Stewardship Project in Prineville, Castillo said that thinnings that could be used as fuel sit in piles and will likely be burned next year unless a market develops for it. Regionally, there is only one outlet for biomass to be used as fuel, a cogeneration power plant on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in central Oregon. "We're just a bit too far," he said. "We'd have to pay a subsidy just to get it there."
But the prospect of biomass power generation has drawn attention from a variety of interests, particularly logging companies in the Northwest that, like Collins Pine Co., are developing their own biomass power plants.
"It's an absolutely huge issue on the West Coast and having stewardship contracting, in my opinion, is absolutely essential to cogeneration," said Tom Partin, president of the American Forest Resources Council.
Partin said that in order to rely on stewardship contracts for biomass, however, the contracts must extend beyond their 10-year maximum, a prospect that has sparked objections from conservation groups that were already on the fence about stewardship contracts.
"I don't think we would support that," responded Mike Anderson, a senior research analyst with the Wilderness Society. "I think 10 years is plenty."
Citizens in Applegate, Ore., launched a study last week to determine the feasibility of a new biomass power facility that would either be entirely or cogenerated by forest thinnings. Any biomass power plant in the area could potentially be fed by the nearby BLM Medford District, where there are at least five active stewardship contracts and another five proposed for this year.
BLM Forester Blair Moody said have a biomass power plant close by would help overcome the cost of transporting the forest thinnings out of the stewardship areas. "It's definitely that problem," Moody said, "It doesn't pay its way out of the woods." |
