Gonna Be Lighting This Place From Logging Slash

[JustWood]

Out here we have clear cuts that are the entire side of huge mountains. If you were a critter and not a top predator, how many wide open spaces are you going to cross? None. Clear cutting has destroyed migration routes for many animals. Also, the effect of these large slashes on the watersheds are massive. They have destroyed many salmon habitats. Not a trivial thing considering the interconnectiveness of salmon with the local food chain. They can recover, eventually, but the effect is not trivial.

Clearcuts actually provide excellent cover and travelways for wildlife. Also lots of browse that woodn't be found in a mature coniferous forest due to excessive shade.
Clearcuts in the PNW I believe are based more on sections of a certain maturity timber and the economics of logging.
Equipment designed for efficient slash collection isn't capable of steep gradient. It's doubtful it will happen in the NW as much as flat lands in the south and east .

 

[btuser]

There are winners and losers when you clearcut, or selectively cut for that matter. There's 5000 acres behind my house being cut right now, and while others are upset over it I am impressed with the care and technique being employed. They're cutting in swaths about 30' wide, leaving rows of trees in between. A mix of mature and smaller trees are left (although I dont see many veneer quality logs being left behind!) with about 40-60% cover being left behind. After 2 years the blueberry + blackberry bushes are already starting to grow up, with the ash and maple suckers already 6' high. In a 100'x100' patch I picked over 10 quarts of berries.

I'm in favor of cutting on public land, but what I don't like is letting people make a mess, then finding out you paid them to do it. The guys cutting the trees should be the ones making the money.

 

[RNLA]

All of these are good points. I can see why they do not want responsible or irresponsible people cutting off the edges of the clear cut slash piles. There is no way to make sure the people are not doing stupid. It only takes one idiot to screw it up! So as Brother Bart originaly posted, they want to fire a lighting plant with logging slash then go for it in my eyes. If they can use the product and make something out of nothing then OK. As others have said there is no magic bullet to solve our energy problems.

 

[pring7]

I didn’t realize it until recently, but we have a similar thing in our county. I don’t think that many people are even aware of it.


(broken link removed to http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=49840)

 

[peakbagger]

I didn’t realize it until recently, but we have a similar thing in our county. I don’t think that many people are even aware of it.


(broken link removed to http://www.edf.org/page.cfm?tagID=49840)

There is at least one more wood fired power plant in Eastern NC, its in Kenansville in Duplin County, their website hasnt been updated for awhile but here it is (broken link removed to http://www.coastalccp.com/). I think the net output is around 26 MW. Its about 10 miles off the interstate adjacent to a textile plant so if you didnt know what it is you would probably assume its part of the textile plant.

I expect several pulp and paper mills in the state burn biomass and some of the steam is probably generating power.

 

[begreen]

The Seattle Steam plant switched over to wood fuel this year. It seems to be burning pretty cleanly. Located right alongside of downtown and a couple blocks from Pike's Market, I suspect most people have no idea it's burning wood.

 

[pring7]

I wouldn’t have even thought that was what a wood to power generating structure would look like. I will have to keep an eye out next time I go down there. We’ve been to Kenansville a few times for their wine festival. I should pay close attention to see if I can find it, well before the festival.

I wonder what the cost of something like that is. It's probably something privately owned by a few well off partners. With all of the dead wood around from floods and hurricanes I could quit my day job and just feed the boiler every day.

 

[Wood Duck]

I think around here (central Pennsylvania) it is the usual practice to allow firewood cutting of logging slash in state forest - and there is a lot of state forest in this part of the state. Unlike what others have written I don't think there is any ecological reason not to cut firewood from logging waste. First of all, access to the forest is restricted to established roads - the temporary logging roads are in most cases deliberately blocked with waste logs when the loggers leave the area. This means that only a small percentage of the woods are close enough to roads for most guys to bother cutting wood. Even in the areas where somebody is cutting, most of the wood is left behind because it is small or twisty/hard to cut. Second, here in the eastern deciduous forest dead rotting wood isn't a major part of the forest floor ecosystem. The image of a seedling growing from a rotten log is not representative of how things actually happen here most of the time. Sure, rotten logs can provide habitat for some creatures, but there is almost always enough rotting wood left behind for lots of salamanders and centipedes.

There is a large area of Black Moshannon State Forest not too far from here that was logged and there are hundreds or maybe thousands of cords of oak left rotting in the woods. I need to check out a firewood cutting permit once the snow melts.