How will competition from nearby sawmills affect fuel availability?.How long will such a plant be economically viable? Will it depend on public funds?.What size plant is contemplated? Is it under one Megawatt (the definition of “community-scale” biomass)? Or is it the 3-7 Megawatts previously mentioned in ABC meetings?.Just how far have “exploratory discussions” gone? Who, exactly, has been involved?.Where, exactly, are the potential biomass locations in Alpine County that were toured by consultants in 2019? (See Alpine Biomass Collaborative minutes of July 2, 2019).We hope that the supervisor will provide solid data in future communications. Thus far, the public has received only vague and evasive answers when we asked for specifics. This isn’t saying a biomass plant will be clean only that its emissions will be somewhat better than a smoky open fire. Instead, the supervisor, who is concurrently the chairman of Alpine Biomass Collaborative, claims that a biomass facility would “actually improve air quality over the alternative” - open-air burning. The recent letter from an Alpine County Supervisor about the proposed biomass plant missed a wonderful opportunity to provide citizens with solid information. We care and should help the return to a healthy forest. Those trees are essential to the Carson Valley watershed. Alpine county is going to need Nevada support in their recovery as those in Sacramento probably have no idea where it is or why they should care. Putting sawmills where needed as close to the burn areas requires local government and residents to accept them as a needed part of the post fire recovery process. Putting these post fire transportable sawmills locally allows much of the timber to become valuable lumber even if their presence is a brief annoyance to local residents. Often after a forest fire the dead and dying trees are consumed by insects rather than becoming viable lumber. Today, much of the lumber used in the US comes from Canada. Public opinion turned, forest management stopped resulting the dense and more fire prone forests we have now. The USFS Foresters usually managed the “harvest of trees” to thin the forest reducing complete fire destruction and often to create defensible fire breaks. The USFS lands were managed much like agricultural land only with a much longer growth cycle dating back before development in the western states. Often the towns grew around the sawmills and much of the lumber was used locally.
A dozen or more existed between Susanville and Bridgeport on both sides of the mountains. Fifty-five years ago, when I arrived in Nevada, many small communities had small locally owned sawmills to process the logs harvested in the Sierras.
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