Fremont-Winema National Forests

Biomass

As a result of fire suppression over the last 100 years, there is more biomass in the forest, living and dead, than is typical of the kinds of forests found here. The Forest's have developed a number of projects that are intended to reduce biomass to more sustainable levels and ultimately allow fire to play a more natural role. It remains difficult to remove certain material because its value for wood products or paper is not high enough to make it worth anyone's effort to remove. At the same time, Forest Service budgets have not been high enough to pay for its removal. In the past, this material has typically been collected into slash piles and burned as the cheapest means of disposal. The Forests are now looking at alternatives that reduce smoke and can give the material some value that would help remove it from the Forest.

Electricity: Biomass that has no value for other purposes may have value as hog fuel for power plants that can burn the material to produce electricity. While this releases carbon dioxide into the air, just as if the material were burned in the woods or allowed to naturally rot, it is hoped that use of biomass will reduce the need to burn fossil fuels for electricity production. Fossil fuels release carbon that has been stored for millenia in the earth and adds it to the amount that cycles in the environment.

The Fremont-Winema National Forests are now supporting the development of biomass powerplants that can be positioned so that it is economical to get the forest biomass to the power plant. The Forest Service is one of several parties to a memorandum of understanding (PDF-2,421K) that is intended to provide a framework for planning and implementing forest and rangeland restoration and fuels projects that address identified resource needs while being supporting of the Lakeview Biomass Project.

In addition, the Fremont-Winema National Forests are making biomass material available to those that can already remove it economically. The operation shown in the photo below paid for slash piles that were ready to be burned. The material is being chipped and hauled from the Chiloquin Ranger District to a biomass power plant in White City, Oregon - a distance of around 100 miles.