It was gratifying to read the well-researched August 23 My Turn column by Harry Dresser, “Study fails to indict wood,” in which he puts to rest the anti-pellet assertions by Beth Adams in her August 8 My Turn piece.
In referring to the American Lung Association, Ms. Adams failed to note that the association has run woodstove changeout programs that it maintains will “improve air quality in our neighborhood by replacing old, high-polluting and inefficient woodstoves with new EPA certified wood, pellet and gas stoves.”
The Recorder’s Aviva Luttrell on March 23 reported that, “Massachusetts residents will once again have the opportunity to get a rebate if they swap old, inefficient woodstoves for cleaner, EPA-certified models after the state announced a $700,000 extension of its 4-year-old Commonwealth Woodstove Change-Out Program in Greenfield Wednesday.”
As for destroying our forests, no landowner in his or her right mind would harvest a tree for conversion into pellets. Saw timber, ply logs and veneer logs are among the highest value products that come out of a forest. As a result, the only time whole mature trees are harvested is when they are large enough to bring higher prices. Economically, it makes no sense to do otherwise.
What pellet manufacturers do look for is unmerchantable timber in a wood basin, before deciding to take advantage of the lower cost of this product. We’re talking about the residue left from legitimate tree harvesting, woodland thinning and storm damage (of which there is tons and tons in Massachusetts, resulting from winter ice storms and Hurricane Irene.) As this wood decays,it creates CO2 and methane emissions.
Older home woodstoves and fireplaces are major contributors to local air pollution because, unlike commercial wood boilers, they lack any kind of emission controls.
In a perfect world, we would burn nothing. In the less-than-perfect world we live in, wood pellets are the best environmental wood fuel.
John Bos
Shelburne Falls