New Dogwood Alliance Video Exposes Wood Pellet Industry Impact on Rural Communities

The following is a guest post from the Dogwood Alliance’s Scot Quaranda. mk

We thought you might be interested in our new video…

Dogwood Alliance is proud to release our investigative video Our Forests Aren’t Fuel: Injustice in Northampton

While Southern wetlands are going Up in Smoke so European Governments can meet their renewable energy targets, our forests and communities are hit the hardest. From Virginia to Florida, along the Mississippi River and throughout the South the negative impact on our communities has become clearer every day, and the Injustice in NorthamptonCounty in northeastern North Carolina is no different.

Residents in this rural community close to the Enviva Northampton plant now face 24/7 extreme noise and lights, dust that coats cars, buildings and lungs in just a few minutes of exposure, along with dangerous, heavy truck traffic. The Northampton community quickly rallied and are working with Dogwood Alliance and Clean Water For North Carolina to bring the attention of local officials to the conditions that Enviva forces them to live with every day.

For more information on the Our Forests Aren’t Fuel campaign visit here.

To read more about the situation in Northampton and how locals are fighting back visit here.

Best,

Scot Quaranda
Dogwood Alliance

12 thoughts on “New Dogwood Alliance Video Exposes Wood Pellet Industry Impact on Rural Communities”

  1. Matthew.. people don’t like oil and gas development either, even where it hasn’t been for export, due to some of the same concerns.

    I think there are two questions: 1) who wins and who loses from any kind of development (conceivably jobs are involved and they are good things for some people) and 2) to what extent does it matter if the resource is exported or not? Why is that?

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  2. Matthew

    Re the DWA quote: “The few dozen jobs created in these mills will disappear quickly as the source of wood close to the mill is logged out”.
    –> This is based on what facts? If this comes to be true, I will be very surprised that the investors were dumb enough to spend all of the capital necessary for this operation without first insuring that they had a sustainable source of wood in order to make a reasonable return on their investment. This unsubstantiated cut out and get out charge just doesn’t make any economic sense. As Sharon said elsewhere and as you reminded me in another post, unsubstantiated charges are inappropriate.

    How come you found it necessary to start a new post when this is simply a repackaging of the video that you posted on the thread that I started on this same subject? I refuted these claims in that prior post here https://forestpolicypub.com/2014/03/12/study-finds-transatlantic-pellet-trade-results-in-significant-ghg-reduductions-over-fossil-fuels/comment-page-1/#comment-39714 – Each of your links above either contains a different slice from the video you originally posted on the earlier thread (including some redundant links) or it takes you to an article that adds nothing new to what was in the video.

    Call me curious.

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      • Matthew

        No, I didn’t miss the fact that this is a guest post that you sponsored. I ignored it and now I’m simply calling your hand. Since Scott is not an NCFP member, it seems like an amazing coincidence that this redundant Guest Post suddenly appeared under your sponsorship when you didn’t like my responses to exactly the same info that you posted in the full DWA video yesterday in another thread. I did notice that the “new” full video had edited out the opening frame showing the vigorous young hardwood regeneration in the clearcut that I commented on in the previous version of the video that you posted in the earlier thread. Please tell me that this change isn’t selective misrepresentation.

        RULE # 1: As I explained to you elsewhere earlier today or late last night and many other times since I joined NCFP, I am not interested in chasing down and correcting people who are not active on the NCFP blog site and have to be reached outside of this blog. If a DWA staffer contacts you and wants to know my opinion, all you have to do is give him a link to my existing posts. Since Scott is not a member of this group, how did he know to contact you to post this for him? Please tell me that you didn’t solicit this redundancy from the DWA. Regardless of that, you posted this redundancy for the DWA – the ball is in your court. If you agree with me you can correct them for misinforming you and the rest of the NCFP members – If you disagree with me then I can’t convince you so why should I bother trying to convince them.

        SOoooo, you’ll have to find someone else to run your errands. Seems like you’d have learned by now that you are wasting your time when you make such suggestions. For efficient use of our time in the future, please remember Rule #1.

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        • Morning Gil. Here’s what I know:

          1) On Thursday, March 13, 2014 at 3:34 pm I received an unsolicited email communication from the Dogwood Alliance’s Scot Quaranda titled “New Video Exposes Wood Pellet Industry Impact on Rural Communities.”

          2) On Friday, March 14, 2014 at 7:37 am I posted a guest post from the Dogwood Alliance’s Scot Quaranda which I titled, “New Dogwood Alliance Video Exposes Wood Pellet Industry Impact on Rural Communities.”

          3) There are currently 305 “subscribers” to A New Century of Forest Planning. The vast majority of these “subscribers” obviously don’t write and post comments of there own here, since the vast majority of comments made on this site come from a dozen or two people. Furthermore, as an example, over the past three days this site has gotten 416, 525 and 404 views. While Sharon may have access the identities of all 305 “subscribers” to this blog and/or access to the identities of the people who comprised the 1,345 views this blog received over the past 3 days, I’m not sure where to find that information. Therefore, I certainly cannot say with any degree of certainty who is, or is “not active on the NCFP blog site” or who is, or is “not a member of this group.”

          4) You have clearly stated that you are entirely unwilling to ever contact anyone who is “not active on the NCFP blog site and have to be reached outside of this blog.” That’s certainly your choice.

          Reply
          • Matthew

            #4 – Thank your for your permission – I’m glad to know that it is my choice.

            #1 & #2 – Thank you – I am very glad to hear that

            #3 – I confused things in my original Rule #1, so let me clarify. Rule #1 is necessary in light of your regular use of outside sources without taking any stand as to whether you agree with the post or not and then when people find fault with the post your standard reply is: “here is the author’s contact info – talk to them not to me.”

            Rule #1: If the author/references of a post/comment has to be contacted outside of the normal post and comment process for NCFP. I will not be contacting them.

            Part A) If anyone seriously wants me to reconsider my initial cursory opinion to the post/comment then I will need to validate the post/comment for the credibility of the references and the statistical reliability of the underlying research and the appropriateness of the conclusions drawn from those studies. In such a case I will require that the person making such a request be invested in the analysis so they will have to use the off NCFP contact info in order to supply me with the the links to the references in the post/comment and the links to any secondary references that I need to question as found in the original post/comment references.

            Part B) Since I have spent much time doing such work in the past to satisfy questions only to have the questioner ignore my replies, I will also require that any such requester commit to a point by point followup discussion in the original post/thread on NCFP of my initial cursory points as well as any new significant issues found during my followup evaluation of the original post/comment.

            Reply
  3. “Scott is not an NCFP member”

    NCFP doesn’t have “members”. Anyone is free to contribute. Unlike, for example, the LinkedIn SAF forum, which does have members. The distinction is pretty simple. Some people obviously post and comment here more than others, but any correlation between quantity and quality is tenuous, as in any forum. I’m unaware of any special status conferred by voluminous posting and/or commenting.

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    • Just to clarify, anyone is not free to contribute and get posted. People write me with various contributions that sound like marketing ploys and I do not allow them to post.

      I depend on the quality filters of each individual on the blog listed as a “contributor” as to what gets posted from each of you.

      As to the SAF Linked In, anyone is free to contribute to that, and you don’t have to be a member of SAF. You do have to join the LinkedIn group, though. Here’s a link that I think will take you to the SAF group.

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      • fine, maybe that clarifies for some folks. As with “letters to the editor” of a newspaper, anyone is free to contribute here without being a member of anything. Which I think is what I said. There is indeed an editorial filter for posts and comments here, which is a different issue. With SAF LinkedIn, you have to be a member of the group. Which again is what I said (not that you have to be a member of SAF, which is irrelevant). Again, it’s a pretty simple distinction, I don’t see a need to complicate it.

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  4. Very little discussion here about the merits or lack thereof, or of the larger question of why there’s a market for biomass in Europe. What’s the policy driver, and is THAT the real stupidity?

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