Daily Archives: October 24, 2019

Today’s Takeaway

Canfor’s operating losses rise as Q3 revenues plunge

October 24, 2019
Category: Today's Takeaway

Canfor’s Q3 losses rise on weaker lumber markets—especially in BC— and due to lower pulp and paper earnings. In related news: Premier Horgan wants Western Forest Product’s labour dispute resolved soon, while Vancouver Island logging contractors fear for their future. Meanwhile: BC’s first 12-storey wood building breaks ground in Langford; climate change bodes well for Ontario’s mass timber future; and embodied energy experts say “wood is good, steel and concrete are bad.”

In Forestry/Climate news: Canadian scientists complete the family tree for the tree of life; BC appoints feedback-panel on old-growth protection; Alaska Tribes opine on the Tongass question; logging gets a new lease on life in Arizona; and the White House sides with the EPA on the future of biofuels.

Finally, a fast-moving wildfire prompts evacuations in California wine country.

Kelly McCloskey, Tree Frog Editor

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Business & Politics

Canfor Pulp Products Inc. Announces Third Quarter 2019 Results and Quarterly Dividend

By Canfor Pulp Products
Cision Newswire
October 23, 2019
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, United States

VANCOUVER — Canfor Pulp Products reported third quarter 2019 results. Reflecting weak global pulp market conditions, significant market-related downtime and fibre supply disruptions from BC Interior sawmill curtailments, the Company reported an operating loss of $44.0 million for the third quarter of 2019, down $62.4 million from the operating income of $18.4 million reported for second quarter of 2019. …Pulp production was 174,000 tonnes, down 126,000 tonnes, or 42%, from the previous quarter, largely reflecting the quarter-over-quarter impact of downtime. …Operating income in the Company’s paper segment was $3.9 million, down $4.2 million from the second quarter of 2019. …Looking forward, global softwood kraft pulp markets are projected to show signs of a modest recovery in the fourth quarter of 2019 with consumers replenishing inventories following the seasonally slower summer months. …On October 23, 2019, the Board declared a quarterly dividend of $0.0625 per share

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Canfor Reports Results for Third Quarter of 2019

By Canfor Corporation
Cision Newswire
October 23, 2019
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, United States

VANCOUVER — Canfor Corporation reported its third quarter of 2019 results. Reflecting weak global market conditions and a challenging fibre cost environment in BC, for the third quarter of 2019, Canfor reported an operating loss of $124.0 million compared to an operating loss of $49.7 million reported for the second quarter of 2019. …Reported results for the third quarter of 2019 included a net duty expense of $53.5 million, compared to $45.2 million reported in the second quarter of 2019. …Lumber segment losses primarily reflected prolonged weakness in… benchmark lumber prices, continued elevated log costs in BC, and 360 million board feet of production curtailments. …Total lumber shipments, at 1.23 billion board feet, were 16% lower than the previous quarter principally reflecting the challenging market conditions impacting our Western SPF lumber business and the related market downtime in the current quarter.

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Business Council of BC downgrades B.C.’s economic growth forecast

Kamloops Matters
October 24, 2019
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

Ken Peacock

B.C. will end 2019 with slower than expected economic growth, according to a Business Council of BC (BCBC) economic review and outlook. “Economic growth is expected to remain sluggish over the remainder of the year, leading to a poor hand-off into 2020,” Ken Peacock, chief economist for the BCBC, said in a news release. “This will have a negative impact on the provincial government’s revenue forecast.” For the second time this year, the BCBC has had to adjust its economic growth projections for B.C.’s economy for 2019. It was originally forecast at 2.2 per cent, then downgraded to two per cent. The BCBC has now downgraded it again to 1.8 per cent. It cites B.C.’s “crisis in forestry,” and “very weak retail sales” as some of the internal factors affecting B.C.’s economy. B.C.’s forest industry has been hammered by multiple sawmill closures and curtailments, due to falling lumber prices in the U.S., high stumpage costs and a decline in available timber.

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Logging contractor calls for end to WFP strike

By Dean Stoltz
CHEKTV
October 23, 2019
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

Logging companies across Vancouver Island should be busy right now but instead, work has been ground to a halt since July 1 when 3,000 forestry workers walked off the job in a strike against Western Forest Products. “We haven’t turned a wheel since July the 1st so our operation’s been down now four months,” said Bill Nelson, an owner of Holbrook Dyson Logging. “We haven’t been able to pay our guys obviously, we haven’t had any income into the business, zero cash flow and all of our equipment is behind picket lines.” …“Two hundred contract companies that are affected by this strike and they all have office staff too and if they all have two there’s 400 more people out of work,” he said. …He doesn’t know how long many of the contractors will be able to stay in business. 

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B.C. Premier talks pipeline, Western separatism at economic summit

By Nicholas Pescod
The Nanaimo News Bulletin
October 23, 2019
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada West

John Horgan

B.C. Premier John Horgan… joined the Vancouver Island Economic Summit at the Vancouver Island Conference Centre in Nanaimo via video conference. …Horgan also discussed forestry on Vancouver Island and noted the ongoing labour dispute between Western Forest Products and its employees, which he said he wants to see resolved soon. He also told the crowd that Nanaimo-based Harmac, which is employee-owned, is about to sign an eight-year operating agreement with its workers. “These are exciting opportunities for the forest sector,” Horgan said. However, if Vancouver Island and BC are to continue to benefit from forestry, efforts must be made to move from “high volume” to “high value,” said Horgan. …“The waste that we continue to see in some cutblocks across Island is valuable and we need to make sure that waste gets accessed, is monetized and commercialized and gets to market,” Horgan said.

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Northern Pulp will spread pollution further

Letter by Dr. Robert Macneill, Sydney
The Chronicle Herald
October 24, 2019
Category: Business & Politics
Region: Canada, Canada East

To be clear, I own woodlots. …My children’s university education was paid for by my marketing wood. …I’m quite comfortable stating that nothing good comes out of the pulp mill waste currently deposited in Boat Harbour. The wood fines from the discharge have drifted east and west of the mill for many kilometres. The wood fines…provide a flotation system to ensure a wide dispersal of the dioxins, furans and other toxic substances along the coast. …I have read Northern Pulp’s proposed plan to send effluent into the Northumberland Strait… This would ensure that those same contaminants and poisons are dispersed over a wider area of our coastline, poisoning a different marine ecosystem. To reiterate, closure of the pulp mill will admittedly result in economic hardship, but persistence of the pulp mill spewing its noxious wastes is, by far, the greater crime…

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U.S. plywood producers sue over false labeling of off-grade Brazilian panels

By Sydney Franklin
The Architect’s Newspaper
October 23, 2019
Category: Business & Politics
Region: United States

Ten domestic plywood producers have jointly filed a lawsuit against several U.S. certification agencies for falsely labeling ineffective imported panels from South America. The group, known as the U.S. Structural Plywood Integrity Coalition, claims that structural panels produced in Brazil are being fraudulently certified and stamped upon entry to the U.S. even though they don’t meet the country’s minimum requirements for stiffness and deflection (the amount it sags when under horizontal load). This isn’t a new issue: In June 2018, the nonprofit trade group APA – The Engineered Wood Association sent an advisory to all domestic manufacturers detailing the results of its own nearly year-long experiment testing the strength and structural integrity of imported panels from seven different Brazilian producers. Though all of their products were marked with the official stamp for Structural Plywood, known as U.S. Product Standard PS 1-09, they all failed to comply with federal regulations by large margins. 

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Wood, Paper & Green Building

First of its kind 12-storey wooden building coming to Langford

By Brenda Strain
CTV News
October 23, 2019
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: Canada, Canada West

LANGFORD, BC — A groundbreaking was held on Wednesday, Oct. 23  for a first-of-its-kind, 12-storey tall wooden mixed-use building in Langford. The building, called Tallwood 1, will be located at 2830 Peatt Road and is a part of the upcoming District 56 complex. Tallwood 1 will be a mass timber, mixed-use residential and commercial building while the neighbouring mass-timber building, Terminus, will be a five-storey commercial building. …Matthew McKay, Founder of Design Build Services, says building from mass timbers benefits everyone, even people not living or working in the buildings. …Langford Mayor Stew Young said… “It puts the forest industry in B.C. back to work,” said Young. “It creates jobs locally and building out of the wood is cheaper than steel construction, so it should make it more affordable for our residents.”

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Climate change fight good for the North

By PJ Wilson
The Kirkland Lake Northern News
October 23, 2019
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: Canada, Canada East

David Robertson

…David Robinson, an associate professor in economics at Laurentian University, told the North Bay Canadian Club …There is going to be …investment dollars and jobs in northeastern Ontario, while the abundance of natural resources – especially lumber – will pay big dividends. …“Two resources – mining and forestry – will benefit,” Robinson says. One Liberal policy, shared by the NDP, is for net-zero emissions in all vehicles by 2050, and for that “metals are desperately needed for electrification.” …And “one of the best ways of cutting carbon emissions” is the use of mass timber construction, which uses large prefabricated wood members for wall, floor and roof construction. …Toronto, he points out, is the fastest-growing urban construction region in North America, and it only makes sense that much of the fabrication of mass timber and cross-laminated timber takes place in Northern Ontario.

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Embodied Carbon Emissions in Buildings

By Phil Kaplan
The Green Building Advisor
October 23, 2019
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: United States

Phil and Chris, hosts of the Green Architects’ Lounge Podcast, define and discuss embodied carbon in buildings, and make an impassioned case for understanding why this is absolutely the most urgent issue we face in the design and construction industry today—even ahead of zero-energy building—as we work together to combat a fast-approaching climate crisis. …Phil and Chris define the critical difference between embodied and operational carbon, and explain why net-zero-energy buildings simply aren’t enough at this moment in time. They take a pass at understanding the numbers behind the issues. They also spend the second half of the podcast talking about the materials that we either must, or absolutely should not specify. Wood is good, steel and concrete are bad, but anyone in the industry knows that this doesn’t leave us with a simple puzzle to solve.

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WholeTrees is smartly repurposing timber across the Midwest

By Jamie Evelyn Goldborough
The Architect’s Newspaper
October 23, 2019
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: United States, US East

Wisconsin-based design and construction company WholeTrees Structures finds both architectural opportunity and environmental advantage in designing and building with intact tree trunks that would otherwise be used for firewood or pulp. Amelia Baxter and architect Roald Gundersen founded WholeTrees 12 years ago to build new markets for “cull trees,” or trees with rot and poor form and limberness. At the time, designers were generally less aware than they are today of the carbon footprint associated with engineered building materials. …The Festival Foods Grocery Store in Madison, Wisconsin, features WholeTrees’ largest natural round-timber trusses, which facilitate spans of up to 55 feet.

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Supply chain network formed to save forest resources

By Ke Jiayun
Shine
October 23, 2019
Category: Wood, Paper & Green Building
Region: International

Forest enterprises, timber associations, governments and intergovernmental organizations from home and abroad have agreed to create a voluntary network to enhance cooperation on the legality and sustainability of all forestry operations, according to a forum that concluded in Shanghai on Wednesday. The two-day International Forum: Together towards Global Green Supply Chain was attended by some 400 professionals from the tropical timber industry and trade. They discussed topics like the contribution of productive forests and the wood industry to the mitigation of climate change and sustainable development, trends in global timber supply and the development of legality and sustainability in global wood supply chains. The Global Green Supply Chain network will be maintained by a coalition of forest companies and other wood industry stakeholders committed to legal and sustainable supply chains. Its members pledged to help build a collaborative network to promote the sustainable development of forest industries and contribute to the conservation of global forest resources.

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Forestry

‘Everything is interrelated:’ Scientists write family tree for tree of life

By Bob Weber
Canadian Press in the Victoria Times Colonist
October 23, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada

Scientists have written the family tree for the tree of life. Researchers from around the world and several Canadian universities say it’s taken nine years of work to analyze the genetics of 1,100 plant species from algae to elm trees. That work, released Wednesday in the journal Nature, has allowed them to pinpoint a billion years of evolutionary relationships between plants as different as cannabis and cucumbers, orchids and oaks. “Everything is interrelated,” said the University of Alberta’s Gane Wong, one of the paper’s dozens of co-authors. Science has known for a long time that species with significant differences can be related through a common evolutionary ancestor. In plants, those relationships have been studied mostly through how they look or behave. Do they have trunks? Flowers? How do their seeds form? …”It’s all based on exploring the diversity of life, because evolution or nature has solved a lot of important problems,” Wong said.

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Government takes next step in old-growth protection

By Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development
Government of British Columbia
October 23, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

As part of government’s new approach to managing old growth in British Columbia, a two-person, independent panel is engaging British Columbians to get input and hear perspectives on managing the province’s old-growth forests for ecological, economic and cultural values. Government appointed panel members Garry Merkel and Al Gorley to lead an Old Growth Strategic Review and provide a report to Doug Donaldson, Minister of Forests. “We are committed to developing a new thoughtful and measured approach to managing [old growth] for the benefit of all British Columbians,” Donaldson said.  …Additionally, British Columbians will have the opportunity to express their views on old-growth forests in B.C. through the panel’s public engagement website: https://engage.gov.bc.ca/oldgrowth Interested individuals are invited to complete the online questionnaire. Organizations, professionals and other interested parties may also submit written submissions online.

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Local contractors benefit from logging near hospital

By Sophie Woodrooffe
Sunshine Coast Reporter
October 23, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

Wood that was logged from a vacant lot across from Sechelt Hospital has been purchased and will be processed locally. “With the downturn of forestry we felt it was important to support our local forest contractors and forest companies by keeping local companies busy. This helps the Nation contractors, local business and the overall local economy,” said Jordan Louie, forestry general manager of Tsain-Ko. In September, shíshálh Nation hired Triple Tree Contracting to log approximately two hectares of vacant Nation-owned land across from Sechelt Hospital, to reduce the risk of fire. Several human-caused fires had burned in the forested lot, and it was being used as a homeless camp. The Nation …awarded [the contract] to Suncoast Lumber & Milling in Wilson Creek… It was sorted as dimension lumber used for fencing and decking and will be sold locally and in Vancouver. The remaining wood will be chipped at Salish Soils.

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Perseverance Week major opportunity for Cumberland Forest

BC Local News
October 23, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

The Cumberland Community Forest Society (CCFS) has been presented with an incredible opportunity thanks to a generous donor who has offered a “magic match” for the week of Oct. 24-31. Up to $50,000 will be matched, dollar for dollar, from special events and donor drives for the last week of October. That’s $100,000 in forest-saving fundraising potential. This week-long campaign called “Perseverance Week” is filled with events and initiatives to celebrate the Cumberland Forest community and its efforts to protect the forests, creeks and wetlands surrounding Cumberland and in the Perseverance Watershed. …The CCFS has been purchasing and protecting forests, trails, wetlands and creeks surrounding Cumberland since the year 2000. 

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Managing Community Forests: Cariboo Wildfire Risk Reduction Projects

Forest Enhancement Society of BC
October 23, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

The Forest Enhancement Society of B.C. is supporting three projects within the 100 Mile House Community Forest which will reduce wildfire risk in priority interface areas. The 100 Mile House Development Corporation undertook a multi-phase project. The first phase assessed and identified wildfire risk and the second phase included the development of site-specific forestry. Implementation of various fuel management treatments falls under the third phase. “In 2018, the focus of the 100 Mile Community Forest shifted from harvesting objectives to fuel management and fire break activities,” said Mitch Campsall, mayor, 100 Mile House. “We realigned our priorities to embark on an ambitious fuel management program with the help of FESBC.”

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Baldy Mountain Resort establishes fuel break to protect from future wildfires

By Jordyn Thomson
The Similkameen Spotlight
October 23, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada West

Thanks to funding provided by the Forest Enhancement Society of B.C., a much-needed fuel break was added to the area of the Baldy Mountain Resort… the last wildfire to sweep through the area did so in the 1930s, but since then dense fire-prone trees have grown back. The FESBC provided $279,000 to the resort in order to remove surface fuel and increase the distance between tree crowns to protect the surrounding area. …“As a high-risk area, prone to large-scale catastrophic wildfire, we undertook this project to not only protect the resort, and community of over 100 cabins, but an area of abundant natural beauty,” said Andy Foster of Baldy Mountain Resort in the release.” …The clearance work was carried out by Gorman Bros. Lumber, Lusted Logging and Mike Closs Logging.

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Opening an eye to Indigenous knowledge in forestry education

By Jennifer Sweet
CBC News
October 23, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: Canada, Canada East

The University of New Brunswick is looking to add Indigenous knowledge to its forestry and environmental management curriculum and research. It’s hosting a two-day conference Thursday and Friday that will bring together Indigenous elders and forestry professionals. “If we want to collaborate and manage the resources in Canada or Turtle Island, then we need to have more understanding and more knowledge and start relationships early,” said Logan Keoughan, who is organizing the event as his master’s project in environmental management. The conference will feature speakers such as Clifford Paul, who has been involved in drafting a Mi’kmaq management plan for moose in the Cape Breton Highlands. …The theme of the conference is two-eyed seeing. That refers to a view that’s both Western-scientific and Indigenous. “You’re trying to look with both of those eyes together to solve problems,” said Keoughan.

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The Forest Service Is About to Set a Giant Forest Fire—On Purpose

By Maddie Stone
The Allantic
October 23, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

UTAH — Sometime later this month or in early November, if the weather cooperates, the U.S. Forest Service will fly a pair of fire-spitting helicopters over a remote mountain in southern Utah and set the forest ablaze. While the helicopters are pelting burning liquid fuel at the treetops, dozens of firefighters will be providing support on the ground, using drip torches and flamethrowers to create a towering wall of flame that will stretch from the forest floor to the sky. As the heat builds and the blaze roars across spruce- and fir-stippled canopies, a small army of scientists will launch weather balloons and drones, drive radar- and LIDAR-equipped trucks around the perimeter, fly specialized research planes overhead, and gather data on fire-hardened GoPro cameras to analyze the inferno from start to finish.

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Respect Alaska Tribes’ rights on the Tongass question

By: Richard Peterson
The Alaska Journal
October 23, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

Richard Peterson

The Central Council of Tlingit and Haida Indians… works constructively with all elected officials of any political party without partisanship. …Yet today we are challenged by our disagreement with Alaska elected officials that support the proposed full exemption of the Tongass National Forest from the Roadless Rule. Any elected official in Alaska who supports a full exemption is disregarding their constituents, undermining the public process, and ignoring the sovereign Tribal governments whose people have lived and depended on these lands and waters since time immemorial. …We acknowledge that compromise is necessary, and our desired outcomes are not unreasonable; however, no outcome is credible unless Tribal governments are respected as full partners in the decision-making process.

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Log It or Lose It: New Economic Opportunities Open as the Forest Service Changes Its Management Tactics in Northern Arizona

By Snell & Wilmer
JD Supra Business Advisor
October 22, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US West

…Northern Arizona has millions of acres of National Forest, including the largest Ponderosa Pine tree forest in the world. From the 1870’s to the 1980’s logging was a dominant industry in the area, but the Timber Wars of the 1980’s all but destroyed the industry in Arizona. …Logging companies, once vilified for destroying the environment, are now being called upon to save those forests and the communities that call those woods home. Logging has been limited in Northern Arizona due to the combination of various restrictions, including limitations on logging larger trees and short lease terms of roughly three years. With the help of new local leadership, the Forest Service is undertaking a massive reforestation project called 4FRI. …The second, and current, phase of 4FRI is to issue an RFP, to …for contracts to mechanically thin 605,000 to 818,000 acres of national forest land in Northern Arizona. 

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Georgia SFI Implementation Committee Wins Award for Logger Training, Water Quality, and Community Collaboration

By the Sustainable Forestry Initiative
Global Newswire
October 23, 2019
Category: Forestry
Region: United States, US East

RICHMOND, Va. — The Sustainable Forestry Initiative announced the 2019 winner of the SFI Implementation Committee Achievement Award at the SFI Annual Conference today. The Georgia SFI Implementation Committee was selected for its leadership on logger training, water quality, and outreach to landowners, educators, and legislators. “The Georgia SFI Implementation Committee is being recognized for the difference they are making on the ground to support sustainable forestry.” said Kathy Abusow, President and CEO of SFI. …“Logger training is at the heart of our success in Georgia. This training reaches the independent contractors that are the key to the quality of forest harvesting operations and ensures they are well equipped to protect the environment,” said Steve Fowler, Chair of the Georgia SFI Implementation Committee.

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Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy

Granisle wins award for biomass heat system

By Blaire McBride
Smithers Interior News
October 23, 2019
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: Canada, Canada West

The Village of Granisle has won an award for its ecologically-friendly efforts to heat local buildings. The 2019 Climate and Energy Action Award was presented to Granisle mayor Linda McGuire at a town hall meeting on Oct. 16 by Janice Keyes, Senior Manager with the Vancouver-based Community Energy Association (CEA). Granisle won the accolade in the corporate operations category for its biomass heating system that burns locally-sourced wood chips to heat seven buildings including the curling rink, the civic hall and the library. It has also partnered with the school district to sell heat to the Babine Elementary Secondary School.

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Scaling Up Conference 2019

Scaling Up Conference
October 24, 2019
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: Canada, Canada East

Scaling Up 2019, Canada’s annual industrial bioeconomy international business conference, will be held November 4 to 6, 2019 in downtown Ottawa at the beautiful Chateau Laurier Hotel. Never before has there been a lineup of speakers like this in the cleantech, innovation or bio-circular economy space at a conference in Canada. Register, and book your hotel now. ” look forward to seeing you there”, said Jeff Passmore, Scaling Up Chair. Scaling Up 2019 is pleased to announce that this year’s conference will once again be carbon neutral. Greenhouse gas emissions associated with delegate travel and event space will be offset by Walker Environmental Group retiring offsets registered on the CSA Clean Projects™ Registry.

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White House sides with EPA Over USDA objections on biofuel

By Jennifer Dlouhy
Bangor Daily News
October 23, 2019
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: United States

Administration officials warned that an EPA plan for boosting biofuel-blending requirements violated the spirit of a deal brokered by President Donald Trump. The White House blessed it anyway. The back and forth is revealed in newly released documents from a White House review of the Environmental Protection Agency’s biofuel proposal before its public release Oct. 15. The documents, uploaded to a government regulatory docket late Monday, show the U.S. Department of Agriculture initially warned the plan was inconsistent with an earlier White House promise to ensure “more than 15 billion gallons” of conventional biofuel, such as ethanol, are required to be blended into the nation’s fuel supply beginning in 2020. The documents shed light on a last-minute fight between the EPA and the USDA that briefly delayed the proposal’s release. Ultimately, the EPA prevailed in the skirmish, and the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs signed off on the agency’s approach.

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Helping Meet EU Renewable Targets with Wood Chips

By New England Woodchip Solutions
Biomass Magazine
October 23, 2019
Category: Carbon, Climate & Bioenergy
Region: United States, US East

The European Union has adopted a revised directive establishing a new renewable energy target for 2032 that requires at least 32 percent of its generated energy to be derived from renewable sources. Biofuels, including wood chips, will be instrumental in helping the EU meet the new standard. Focused on opportunity, several U.S. companies and a port in Maine are poised to not only take advantage, but also demonstrate a technological advancement in wood chip processing and supply. New England is home to an enormous wood basket. Maine alone is 90 percent forested and can sustainably supply more than 2 million tons of low-cost residual wood fiber annually. The challenge, however, is processing the wood into chips that meet EU standards, and then economically delivering them to European markets. That’s where a new partnership comes in into play, which will take advantage of existing infrastructure, innovative technology and an abundant, sustainable resource.

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Forest Fires

Fast-moving wildfire ignites in Northern California wine country, prompting evacuations

By Kim Bellware
The Washington Post
October 24, 2019
Category: Forest Fires
Region: United States, US West

A fast-moving wildfire aided by powerful winds in Northern California’s wine country has prompted mandatory evacuation orders in Geyserville, an area of Sonoma County 75 miles north of San Francisco. The Kincade Fire had spread to 10,000 acres by early Thursday, with no containment, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The department issued red flag warnings for the area, a critical alert for when weather conditions such as high heat, low humidity, lightning strikes and strong winds could result in intense and quick-burning fires. The fire started around 9:25 p.m. Wednesday in Geyserville near where Pacific Gas & Electric, the state’s largest utility, cut power earlier that afternoon amid dangerous weather. The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office ordered mandatory evacuations in the area just after midnight.

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