The low thrum of this biomass plant permeates the town of Scotia, which used to be a company town owned by the Pacific Lumber Company. Next to the plant sits a massive pile of wood chips, sawdust and other waste from the nearby sawmill. The pile is as tall as some of the houses with rear windows facing the plant. This mountain of wood waste is burned to generate electricity.
鈥淎t this point, we're getting about 20% of our total electricity needs from that one local biomass plant in Scotia,鈥� said Richard Engel, the Director of Power Resources at the Redwood Coast Energy Authority, or RCEA.
This community-owned electric provider in the region buys the power produced by the biomass plant. Looking at this industrial behemoth belching out smoke, the first words that come to mind likely aren't 鈥渞enewable energy.鈥� But according to the state of California, it is.
鈥淏iomass is viewed differently because you're taking carbon that, in the absence of the power plants, would still go into the atmosphere as the wood rots or breaks down or through other processes,鈥� said Engel.
As long as you鈥檙e growing as many new trees as you鈥檙e cutting down for this biomass plant, it鈥檚 technically carbon-neutral.
But, the way these plants work, and their role in the climate crisis, is why activists like Wendy Ring want to see this plant shut down.
鈥淓ven if, over the long term, burning biomass is carbon neutral, it's not climate neutral, it's not warming neutral,鈥� Ring said. 鈥淏ecause it starts warming as soon as it hits the atmosphere. And then that is starting feedback loops of other things like melting of permafrost that emits methane and promoting wildfires. So we have to get out of this spiral.鈥�
Ring said this 40-year-old plant is also inefficient compared to newer biomass plants.
Ring worked as a doctor in Humboldt County and ran a mobile clinic for 20 years. After learning more about the current threat of climate change, she focused her full energy to advocate for action locally.
Ring said stopping this biomass plant is the easiest way for the county to reduce its emissions significantly. She said transportation is the biggest source of greenhouse gas for the county, but, 鈥淲e do not have great public transit system, the distances are large. But the biomass plant emits around 300,000 metric tons of CO2 a year, which is about 75% of all the emissions from Humboldt County's passenger vehicles.鈥�
Representatives for the Humboldt Sawmill Company, the plant's current owner, declined to be interviewed for this story. Instead, they pointed to Julee Malinowski-Ball, a state energy lobbyist for the biomass industry.
鈥淏iomass is viewed differently because you're taking carbon that, in the absence of the power plants, would still go into the atmosphere as the wood rots or breaks down or through other processes."Richard Engle, Director of Power Resources at the Redwood Coast Energy Authority
Malinowski-Bal said biomass is an important resource because it provides a steady, consistent supply of energy, unlike other renewable sources like solar or wind.
鈥淩edwood Coast Energy Authority needs base load resources because we just can't build a grid on peaking intermittent resources alone, and we don't want to back that up with natural gas base load,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e want to back it up with renewables鈥�
The future of this biomass plant will come to light in the next six years. The contract to buy power from this plant by the Redwood Coast Energy Authority ends in 2031. The RCEA鈥檚 Richard Engel said they鈥檝e incorporated feedback from the community into future plans for power procurement.
鈥淥ne of our strategies that we're operating under is to plan for a transition away, over the long term, from reliance on this combustion of biomass,鈥� he said.
Despite the plan to move away from biomass power, Engel said the agency hasn鈥檛 committed to getting rid of biomass in 2031, when their contract is up. Activists like Tom Wheeler, executive director of the Environmental Protection Information Center, a Humboldt-based conservation nonprofit, want RCEA to phase out the power source by then.
鈥淲e want the Redwood Coast Energy Authority to use this purchasing power in such a way to ensure that we have clean air in our region,鈥� he said.
By drawing a line in the sand now and saying that the contract with the biomass plant won鈥檛 be renewed, Wheeler said that gives the sawmill company time to figure out what to do with the plant.
Biomass industry lobbyist Julee Malinowski-Ball said they鈥檇 likely be able to find another buyer for the energy if RCEA cuts ties. That鈥檚 why Engel said having a contract with the plant gives RCEA some leverage in how it鈥檚 operated.
鈥淲e set up a memorandum of understanding with them, starting a few years ago, in response to these community concerns that gives us more transparency into their operations, their emissions, what feedstocks they're using, things like that,鈥� he said.
When presented with that argument, activist Wendy Ring scoffed, saying that RCEA chooses to ignore environmental violations by the plant. It received at least 15 violations in 2023.
Engel said they regularly keep in touch with the local North Coast Unified Air Quality Management District about any violations the plant faces.
鈥淚s this driving 58 in the 55 zone, or is this a flagrant violation that really needs to be addressed,鈥� Engel said.
According to the air quality district, the plant hasn鈥檛 been a bad actor in the region, and those violations aren鈥檛 enough to warrant terminating the contract.
Ring reached out to the Environmental Protection Agency last year about the plant and some permitting issues she found related to its permit the EPA requires.
Through that, she said she learned that the air quality district hasn鈥檛 officially renewed the permit for the plant for over 20 years. It鈥檚 supposed to be renewed every five years.
鈥淎ll they were doing was extending the expiration date, sort of arbitrarily, without going through the process of a permit renewal,鈥� said Ring.
She said that鈥檚 important because the permit renewal process is open to public comment. It鈥檚 also a chance to insert new, sometimes more stringent regulations that have come out since then.
鈥淓ven if, over the long term, burning biomass is carbon neutral, it's not climate neutral, it's not warming neutral."Humboldt climate activist Wendy Ring
Brian Wilson, the air pollution control officer for the district, acknowledged the record is hazy about what happened to the permit between the first time it was renewed in 2003 and the present. But, he said the permit is modified frequently when changes are made to the biomass plant, and that matters.
鈥淪o the public, in all those cases, have had numerous public comment periods or the EPA has reviewed the permit,鈥� Wilson said. 鈥淪o it's not a dormant permit that was issued 2003 and looks the same and hasn't been touched since then.鈥�
He said during those modifications they try to update the permit with new regulations from the EPA.
Wilson said he wants the public to trust the process, and moving forward, they plan on doing the permit renewal separately from other actions to ensure that it鈥檚 a cleaner process.
The plant will soon be conducting a health risk assessment, expected to be released this year. That鈥檚 something Ring wanted to see the plant do. The assessment will look at the possible exposures to chemicals the community faces, and the health risks associated with that.
That will provide more information to the public and to the air quality control district as they begin the process to renew the permit for the biomass plant this year.
