Local efforts to find uses for small-diameter forest wood have received a huge boost with the announcement of a $1.4 million grant from the federal stimulus package.
The state and two local fire departments also have received American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (stimulus) money to thin out state and private lands in the Prescott area that are overstocked with brush and trees because of decades of wildfire suppression.
The State Land Department is getting $449,000 to thin out brush and trees on state and private land in the Prescott area, including the Government Canyon area.
And the Groom Creek and Crown King fire districts will share $179,000 for the same kind of thinning projects in their jurisdictions surrounded by the Prescott National Forest south of Prescott.
The Prescott Area Wildland/Urban Interface Commission (PAWUIC) will be involved with the State Forestry Division in figuring out exactly how to spend the $1.4 million grant to utilize the small-diameter wood, commonly called biomass. PAWUIC is a consortium of fire agencies and citizens seeking to reduce wildfire dangers in the region.
PAWUIC has struggled for more than a decade with what to do with all the small-diameter wood in this region that generally has no market value.
"It's a real winner deal for the use of biomass fuels," PAWUIC Chair Gary Roysdon said of the grant.
PAWUIC and the state also will be coordinating their efforts with the huge Drake Cement plant under construction northeast of Paulden.
Drake Cement spokesman Cliff Ayers said the cement plant owners now have committed to using biomass for energy to convert local limestone into cement. They have entered into an agreement with Forest Energy Resources of eastern Arizona to create a process to use the biomass.
The biomass will replace part of the 80,000 annual tons of coal the plant would otherwise have used, Ayers said. He couldn't provide more details at this time because of a confidentiality agreement.
The plant might be able to use biomass for as much as 60 percent of its energy needs, said PAWUIC member and grant writer Nick Angiolillo, the county's
emergency management director.
"Everything we could pull out of the forest could go over there, which is so neat," Angiolillo said. He noted that will reduce the need to just burn piles of wood taken from private lands that have no place to go.
"It's going to be very good for the forest and this area - it truly benefits everybody," Ayers said. "The stuff we can burn is stuff nobody else wants."
The plant is scheduled to open sometime during the first quarter of 2010.
PAWUIC originally applied for state forestry assistance grants.
But when state money wasn't available, state officials decided to help applicants seek federal stimulus money, explained Cam Hunter, deputy state forester.
With only four days to turn around the grant applications, state officials rushed to submit a short grant application that emphasizes providing biomass to the Drake Cement plant, Hunter said. The grant application also mentions the potential for converting heating systems in government buildings to biomass heat.
"This will be an important injection into the local economy," Hunter added.
The state still is waiting for official confirmation of the grant, after U.S. Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick first announced it.
"This sort of investment in 21st Century economic development is exactly what the Recovery Act was intended to promote," Kirkpatrick said.
Nationwide, the act included $57 million for biomass renewable energy development.
Reader Comments
Posted: Monday, June 22, 2009
Article comment by:
Gary B.
Great, more trampling of our forests. Did you see the job they did when they logged the forest of beetle kill Ponderosa pine. Those companies didn't care and neither will the companies getting the contracts for this job.
Posted: Sunday, June 21, 2009
Article comment by:
Paul
I'm sort of relieved that some stimulus money is trickling down to us. We really needed to do some tree cutting around here. Too bad Prescott's own Weeping Willow on Gurley had to get the axe!
