N.H. to help proposed pellet plant with wetlands

BERLIN, N.H. – New Hampshire is helping a proposed wood pellet plant move ahead as an economic boost and to promote the health of the region’s forest.

The state will hold a 24-acre, offsite conservation easement to offset wetlands that would be affected by the plant’s construction.

Greenova LLC wants to start construction on the plant this summer.

Greenova is a wholly owned subsidiary of Woodstone USA LLC, which is based in Hingham, Mass. Woodstone currently operates a pellet plant in Holland, Mich., and has another under way in Moreau, N.Y.

The plant will produce 180,000 tons of wood pellets annually. The plant will use 400,000 logs to produce the pellets – enough to give the local logging industry a boost after Fraser Papers closed its pulp mill two years ago.

Maine has at least two pellet plants that have come online in the past few years as demand has grown for alternatives to heating oil, the dominant heating fuel in the region.

In New Hampshire, the state Land Management Bureau already oversees more than 200,000 acres, so adding another 24 is not considered a problem. Land Management Administrator Bill Carpenter said the governor and Executive Council must accept the easement from Berlin, which owns the land.

The land is near Berlin High School and includes snowmobile trails. The protected land will be open to snowmobile and foot traffic.

“All our easements are open to the public for recreation,” Carpenter said.

The city’s planning board conditionally approved the site plan March 4. Greenova hopes to finish the permitting process this month and break ground in May. The plant isn’t expected to be operating until next year.

The pellets are burned for heat as an alternative to more expensive fuels, such as fuel oil.

“I think it’s very, very fair to say we can offer the heating equivalent of one gallon of oil for $1.80,” said Albrecht von Sydow, a principal in Woodstone.

One ton of wood pellets has the energy equivalent of 120 gallons of heating oil.

“One of the things that we saw that was crucial was that when the pulp mill went down, there was an awful lot of demand for wood that evaporated, and so the hope was to be able to find another way to generate some demand, especially for what we consider to be low-grade wood,” said Resources and Economic Development Commissioner George Bald.

Low-grade wood is not of sufficient quality to be used for lumber or flooring.

“If there isn’t a good market for it, basically it stays in the forest,” Bald said. “They’re talking about using about 400,000 tons a year.”

Fraser Papers bought the mills in Berlin and Gorham in 2002, after their closure a year earlier after the bankruptcy of former owner American Tissue. At the height of production, Fraser used about 1 million tons a year of low-grade wood.

Von Sydow said the wood pellet plant will employ 30 to 35, but the wood demand it creates will sustain or create another 200 or more jobs in the logging industry.

Removing low-grade wood from the forest will have environmental benefits.

“The idea of having a market for low-grade wood really does promote the health of the forest,” Bald said. “And we certainly know there is a limit to how much can be cut, but with the previous pulp mill using over 1 million tons a year, certainly we still have quite a bit of capacity before we get to any problems.”