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June 29, 2010

Forum: Unanswered questions cost TCL&P

By ANNE WOIWODE ----

Traverse City is one of the most progressive communities when it comes to pursuing non-fossil-fuel energy sources, and residents deserve a lot of credit for that. However, the city got waylaid with the idea that biomass electric generation was a no-lose situation.

Despite a lot of requests that Traverse City Light & Power carefully consider the full impact of these proposed plants on the forests and pollution, Light & Power declined to do a complete environmental review.

The news that the biomass plants are on hold and that Light & Power will look at natural gas opens the window for all alternatives to get consideration.

What was most troubling in the article announcing the hold on biomass is Light & Power's suggestion that the problem was its inability to sell the plan to the public. That misses the boat entirely. An intelligent and informed public raised many questions that officials in Traverse City dodged or declined to answer.

Public officials thought the right thing to do was to hire people to convince the public to go along with a project instead of opening up discussion and answering the many valid questions raised. This is an object lesson about what our representative democracy is about — the decision-makers are tasked with making hard decisions, but their first job is to make sure they have asked and answered all the right questions, not to make a decision and then try to figure how to sell it.

One unanswered question was where the wood would come from to run the plant. There was not enough waste wood; and much of the standing timber being counted on to provide wood for these plants is not actually available, and other biomass and biofuel plant proposals in the northern Lower Peninsula and the eastern Upper Peninsula overlap the draw area for these plants.

This remains a huge issue that the state must address in a comprehensive way before permitting or providing funding for more projects, instead of simply repeating the misleading statement that Michigan is growing more wood than we cut.

If you live in the area of a proposed biomass or biofuels plant and have a woodlot, wouldn't you like to know whether the company is intent on using your timber as part of their pool? If you are the customer of a publicly owned utility, wouldn't you like to know if they knew where the fuel was going to come from before investing millions in a plant?

The last line of the article talks about there being no silver bullet for the energy issues we face. Bingo! That means it is time to make sure big decisions, whether coal, biomass, wind, solar or anything else other than reducing energy use, are addressed in a comprehensive way.

We must look at site-specific opportunities and barriers, require good environmental review and weigh trade-offs. Light & Power has the opportunity now to continue being a real leader in Michigan's energy future.

About the author: Anne Woiwode is the state director for the Sierra Club Michigan Chapter.

About the forum: The forum is a periodic column of opinion written by Record-Eagle readers in their areas of interest or expertise. Submissions of 500 words or less may be made by e-mailing letters@record-eagle.com. Please include biographical information and a photo.

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