Mainebiz

V O L . X X I I N O. V I I A P R I L 4 , 2 0 1 6 12 trimmings to pulp and paper mills, biomass plants and sawmills in Maine. It's become an increasingly capital- intensive business since he founded his Durham-based company in 1993, with the cost of a new feller buncher approaching $500,000, a grapple skidder running from $150,000 to $325,000 and a chipper ranging from $50,000 to more than $250,000 depending on size. Even in the best of times, logging is not for the faint of heart. " ere are so many factors you have to deal with," Cushman says. "You try to plan for mar- ket conditions but you have no idea what the weather conditions will be when the markets are peaking, or if the market demand will be strong when the weather conditions are ideal." But these are not the best of times. Maine's pulp and paper mills, a major segment of the state's $8 bil- lion wood products industry, have been in a freefall. e pending closure of Madison Paper Industries mill in May, putting more than 200 out of work, will be the fi fth paper mill in Maine to shut down in two years. at leaves just six mills still operating in the state — and one of them, the Verso Paper Corp. mill in Jay, shut down a paper machine last October and gave layoff notices to 300 workers as part of the par- ent company's restructuring that led to Chapter 11 bankruptcy in late January. A new complication is the closure in March of Covanta Energy's biomass power plants in West Enfi eld and Jonesboro, resulting in the loss of 44 jobs at those facilities. Although Covanta left the door open for those plants to reopen — "if the economics improve" — a key factor in the closures are Massachusetts' new more stringent renew- able energy standards that took eff ect on Jan. 1 and deemed Covanta's standalone utility plants as ineli- gible for rate subsidies. ReEnergy Holdings, which runs the state's four remaining biomass plants in Livermore Falls, Stratton, Ashland and Fort Fairfi eld, faces a similar threat when Connecticut's renewable energy credits expire at the end of 2017. For Cushman, whose company derives roughly half its income from biomass sales and the other half selling to pulp mills, fi rewood dealers and sawmills, the collapsing Maine markets make an already chal- lenging job that much harder. "I'm on edge," he says. "Trying to plan and see what the markets six months, 12 months, 18 months are going to look like, it's not getting any easier. We need all of those markets to be strong." Maine's biomass market collapsing too? Eric Kingsley, a partner and vice president at Portland- based Innovative Natural Resource Solutions LLC, has been extensively involved in forestry-related issues as a researcher and consultant since the 1990s. He says the shutdown of the two Covanta biomass plants is a serious setback that's likely to put even more logging jobs at risk than the 10% to 15% workforce reduction forecast for this spring during last November's forum on Maine's pulp and paper industry. Loggers suffer one-two punch Covanta Energy's shutdown of two biomass plants puts logging at risk B y J a m e s M c c a r t h y Impact if all six biomass power plants close S O U R C E : "The Benefi ts and Challenges of Biomass Energy in Maine," whitepaper provided by PLC of Maine A three-page analysis identifies the economic impact if all six of Maine's biomass power plants were to close. Covanta Energy's two plants shut down in March. ReEnergy Holdings' four plants remain open, but are at risk of closing in 2018 due to changes in Connecticut's renewable power rules. T om Cushman steps out of his offi ce, a large piece of logging machinery known as a feller buncher that can cut six or seven small trees at a time, severing the trunks at stump level and setting them aside for a skidder to haul out of the woods to a staging area for later sorting, de-limbing and, in some cases, chipping. It's getting close to quitting time on a 12-hour day, but downhill from Cushman there's still a lot of action going on as a crane plucks logs that have already been de-limbed, twirls them eff ortlessly, sorts and stacks them for delivery to various wood markets in Maine. "We try to get the highest and best use out of the harvested timber that we can," Cushman says, explain- ing how the cutting operation in any given woodlot is guided by a "harvest prescription" that spells out what types of trees will be harvested, which ones will remain in place, and other forest management goals spelled out in that plan. As owner of Maine Custom Woodlands, Cushman oversees a skilled workforce of 22 employees that includes licensed foresters and experienced loggers trained to operate expensive and sophisticated machin- ery that fell, skid, haul and deliver logs or low-value tree Owned by ReEnergy A S H L A N D F O R T FA I R F I E L D L I V E R M O R E FA L L S S T R AT T O N J O N E S BO RO W E S T E N F I E L D Owned by Covanta Closed or at-risk biomass plants Net megawatts of generating capacity lost, or at risk of being lost 0MW 25MW 50MW 75MW 100MW 125MW 150MW 175MW 200MW ReEnergy: 155MW Covanta: 40MW Direct jobs and estimated indirect jobs lost, or at risk of being lost Covanta: 44 0 150 300 450 600 750 900 IJ DJ direct jobs indirect jobs ReEnergy: 104 ReEnergy: 700 Covanta: 200 Annual spending lost, or at risk of being lost $0 $20M $40M $60M $80M $100M $120M ReEnergy: $92.5M Covanta: $23M

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