Green Burn?

An article from the Michigan Messenger today examines plans for biomass power generation plants afoot in northwestern Michigan. In spite of the economic development that might come along with these plants, residents of the affected areas aren't altogether keen on this venture into sustainable power:

Mancelona is facing severe economic stress. The auto parts manufacturer that was the town’s major employer closed last year. Yet, despite the community’s pressing need for jobs, at a public hearing on the company’s air permit application last month, locals focused on potential environmental problems associated with the plant.

The town is also the site of an immense plume of groundwater contamination, and locals raised concerns that plant operations could spread groundwater contamination into the air and that emissions and truck traffic associated with the proposed plant could further degrade the area.

“I’ve seen too many lies in here,” area resident Stuart A. Rogers Sr. said during the hearing, “ … these plants don’t produce 30 jobs.”

In Traverse City, officials have suspended the proposed biomass plant to evaluate other energy options.

It's a complicated issue, touching on air pollution, deforestation, broader patterns of land use and, of course, economic recovery.

My suggestion: Open the plant in southern Michigan and fuel it with exotics like buckthorn, honeysuckle, and multiflora. Cut down some of the overgrown forests in so-called game areas and improve hunting opportunities.

This unlikely and probably unrealistic. But it would address an ecological problem. People are worried that there isn't enough forest to sustain the proposed plants up north. Down here, we may not have as much forest, but we have too much of the wrong kinds of forest. At least in this hunter's view.