Clearcutting in Nova Scotia

Blogger wants to know: if you clearcut, are *all* trees in that area infested or low grade? And...how long would the Crown lands last? Where would the company go when the Crown lands are denuded? So is this sustainable? Trees take up to 60 years to grow to size. And, trees are the lungs of the earth.

Cutting down on clearcuts
NewPage readies for biomass hearings, pledges to reduce controversial forestry practice
By JUDY MYRDEN Business Reporter
Sat, Jul 24 - 4:53 AM

A harvester cuts wood in Rossfield, Pictou County, on Thursday.(Christian Laforce / Staff)

Paul MacDonald, a NewPage district superintendent, says there’s enough wood to fuel the biomass project.

AS THE DEXTER government considers putting the brakes on clearcutting, one of the largest forestry companies working in Nova Scotia says it plans to significantly reduce its reliance on clearcutting.

It’s another sign that Nova Scotia’s forestry industry is bracing for changes ahead of government regulations.

Derek Geldart, regional manager of woodlands for NewPage, an Ohio company that has a paper mill in Port Hawkesbury, defends clearcutting but says NewPage plans to reduce the percentage of its wood it acquires from clearcutting to 50 per cent from 67 by 2020.

"I think clearcutting should be done on a site when it is appropriate to do it," Geldart said. "I do believe clearcutting is an appropriate silviculture system for some of the forests in Nova Scotia."

This week, NewPage managers took The Chronicle Herald and the CBC into five parcels of managed Crown land that the pulp and paper giant has leased in northern Nova Scotia.

During the daylong tour of forest sites, NewPage tried to dispel the image of mechanized destruction of woodlands that clearcutting conjures up.

A Halifax public relations firm organized the show and tell, not to stick up for clearcutting but to defend another controversial aspect of forestry: the use of biomass, or wood waste, as fuel to generate electricity.

On Monday, lawyers for NewPage and its partner, Nova Scotia Power, will try for the second time in a year to persuade government regulators in Halifax to allow them to burn 650,000 tonnes of wood waste a year to generate electricity.

In May, a blue-ribbon panel urged the government to be wary of allowing biomass to be used to generate electricity because the resource may not be sustainable.

Natural Resources Minister John MacDonell has said he is not opposed to the use of biomass, but he is concerned about clearcutting and isn’t in favour of "turning the province into a moonscape" to reduce Nova Scotia Power’s carbon emissions.

In the beautiful rolling hills of Upper Barneys River, Pictou County, the words "clearcutting" and "biomass" aren’t spoken with disdain but are considered viable ways of putting bread on the table.

NewPage says half of the 650,000 tonnes of wood waste it would need would be produced during the company’s papermaking and sawmill operations in Port Hawkesbury, where a power plant would be located.

The other half would be harvested, and half of that, about 170,000 tonnes, would be taken from Crown land as outlined in a 25-year deal NewPage reached with the Dexter government.

Nova Scotia Power has said the $208.6-million project would generate enough electricity to power 50,000 homes annually.

Murray MacDonald, an independent New Glasgow sawmill operator, says there is "quiet confidence" in rural Nova Scotia that if the proposed biomass project goes ahead, it will be good for the sector.

"The forest industry in the past three years has been terrible," said MacDonald, president of M.R. MacDonald Holdings Ltd.

"This project may be the bright light that this industry needs. I think it will be good for contractors, truckers and landowners to get some management done on their stands."

If the biomass project is approved, MacDonald said, contractors would upgrade their equipment and workers could have steady employment.

"To grow our industry, we need a steady stream and an outlet for low-grade hardwoods, and this biomass project is an outlet we need here in Nova Scotia," said MacDonald, whose company has been in operation for 16 years and employs 10 to 12 people.

In a forest stand in Rossfield, Pictou County, Paul MacDonald, NewPage’s district superintendent for Pictou County and St. Mary’s, explains that there is enough wood waste in Nova Scotia forests to fuel the proposed power plant.

The 20-year forestry veteran said the waste wood used would include low-grade material not sold commercially, such as insect- or storm-damaged wood, over-mature hardwood with rot, and other deformed or low-quality hardwood.

"We have a long-term forest management plan, the plan has been verified by third-party audits (and) the province, and when they run the model, it shows we have more than enough growing currently in forests today to sustain the biomass project that has been proposed," MacDonald said.

( jmyrden@herald.ca)