ESFPA E-News

Last Chance to Sign Up for ESFPA June Dinner

On June 14th, the day prior to the ESFPA Board Meeting, we are welcoming our members and their guests to join us for an evening social hour and dinner at the Holiday Valley Lodge in Ellicottville, NY. 

Our guest speakers will be New York Senator George Borrello and Baillie Lumber President Jeff Meyer. The itinerary for the evening is as follows:

• 5:00 p.m. -Social Hour at the Holiday Valley Lodge Sunrise Banquet Room
• 6:00 p.m.- Welcome from NY Senator George Borello and remarks on the 2023 legislative session 
• 6:30 p.m.- Buffet Dinner
• 7:30 p.m.- Remarks from Baillie Lumber President Jeff Meyer about the state of the hardwood industry. 

This event will be a great opportunity for learning and networking with top industry professionals and the Board of ESFPA. If you are interested in attending this event, please call ESFPA at (518) 463-1297, the deadline for event attendance is June 1st. Rooms will be available through Holiday Valley Lodge until May 14th; to book a room call (716) 699-2345.

The fee is $20 per person, and we would like to thank our sponsors for all their support, without which this would not have been possible: Cotton Hanlon, Wagner Group, Farm Credit East, Keister Consulting, and Gutchess Lumber. 

Feel free to send this invitation to your employees and peers. Looking forward to seeing you there!

Supreme Court Narrows the federal Clean Water Act

This week the U.S. Supreme Court issued a unanimous decision narrowing the definition of Waters of the United States (WOTUS) under the Clean Water Act.  While citing different reasons the full court significantly “clipped the wings” of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The Supreme Court’s decision in Sackett v. EPA is a huge victory for housing developers, farmers and the energy industry. The ruling could complicate the Biden administration’s legal defense of its new definition of which wetlands and streams qualify as WOTUS, subject to Clean Water Act permitting.

A number of articles on the decision can be found here, here, and here.  Supreme Court Justice Alito’s opinion can be found here.

ESFPA has worked for years on this ruling and entered into Amicus Briefs with the National Alliance of Forest Owners on the case.

Reforestation Potential in New York State

Two new reports authored by The Nature Conservancy and Cornell entitled, “Reforestation Potential in New York State: Estimating Acres of Post-Agricultural Lands That Could Be Reforested” and “Landowner Perspectives on Converting Land to Mature Forest for Carbon Sequestration.” Together, these reports suggest that there are substantial opportunities for reforestation to occur in New York State with the support of conservation practitioners and state leadership.

Carbon sequestration in trees through reforestation is important to meet New York State’s net zero mandate. The first report provides an estimate of lands that may currently be suitable for reforestation. The study estimates that 1.67 million acres of post-agricultural lands, which are agricultural lands no longer in production, are potentially suitable for reforestation in New York State. In the second report are results from a survey of landowners from 15 counties in in the St. Lawrence Valley and Southern Tier. The findings indicate that many private landowners are currently willing to convert a portion of their land into mature forest, but that significant barriers such as a lack of interest, land use incompatibility, and project costs must be addressed.

These reports and results will be discussed in more detail by authors in a presentation of this work on June 21 at 9am. Zoom link available below for webinar, Reforestation Potential in New York State, June 21 at 9am. 

If you have any questions about the webinar, please reach out to Kelly Lewis (kelly.lewis@TNC.ORG).

What are the Fossil Fuel Alternatives for Rural Camp Owners?

Adirondack landowners deliberate over state climate law.

By Gwendolyn Craig

Landowners with some of the largest inholdings in the Adirondack Park are concerned the state’s climate laws disregard their rural, sometimes off-grid camps, or the forest preserve surrounding them. 

The Adirondack Landowners Association’s (ALA) members collectively own over 200,000 acres in the park, a 6-million-acre patchwork of private and public lands. About 2.7 million acres are constitutionally protected forest preserve where transmission lines, substations or other infrastructure may not be built without a constitutional amendment. Amendments are difficult to accomplish.

In 2019, lawmakers passed the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, which requires the state to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030 and no less than 85% by 2050.

To help reach those goals, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced a statewide ban of natural gas hookups in new buildings seven stories and under starting in 2026. The ban was part of the state budget deal and alarmed park landowners, whose camps are off-grid and run on fuels such as propane. Some are connected to the grid, but they lose power and often for days. Fossil fuel-powered generators are backups. Others are already running camps on solar and hydro power, but rely at times on fossil fuels. The ban applying to new construction could make future camp buildings a challenge.

James Gardner, of the Adirondack League Club in Old Forge, said there is a “tremendous disconnect” between downstate and upstate New York. He pointed to the deadly Buffalo storm in December that dumped over 50 inches of snow and how some needed their gas stoves to stay warm. Winter is a way of life in the Adirondacks, he added.

“The expectation that in 10 years we’re going to have better technology, frankly, is cold comfort,” Gardner said.

Erin Griffin, of the Adirondack North Country Association’s Clean Energy Hub, said many residents feel like they’re trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.

“I want to acknowledge there aren’t going to be perfect solutions right now,” Griffin told a group of ALA members convened on Saturday in Blue Mountain Lake. “Existing conditions are not adequate, I don’t disagree.”

ALA members held a meeting with presentations from ANCA, the state Department of Environmental Conservation, the New York State Energy Research Development Authority, the Empire State Forest Products Association and High Peaks Solar to brainstorm renewable energy transitions.

Sameer Ranade, a climate justice advisor for NYSERDA, assured the state was not banning propane and was experimenting with cleaner liquid fuels.

John Bartow, executive director of the Empire Forest Products Association, said NYSERDA is ramping up work with its innovation team to experiment with new ways to get power. He did not think, however, that lawmakers had park residents in mind with the pace of some of the climate legislation.

Ranade also spoke of the beginnings of a state Cap-and-Invest Program. The program will require large-scale greenhouse gas emitters to purchase allowances for their pollution. The state would put about 30% of those proceeds into a Climate Action Fund to mitigate decarbonization costs for state residents.

Kevin Bailey, of High Peaks Solar, said he has installed a number of off-grid systems in Vermont. The cost of solar panels has come down significantly, he said. He has seen individual systems use a combination of solar panels, small wind turbines and wood pellet stoves or heat pumps. Heat pumps can both heat and cool a home by transferring outside air indoors. Although they require electricity, they generate more energy than they use.

Some park landowners are already experimenting with a suite of renewable energy sources and shared their experiences, which have been mixed. Nathan Potter, of Brandreth Park Association in Long Lake, has a heat pump installed in his camp. It generally works well, he said, but some days it does not keep the house warm enough on its own. Many camp owners rely on wood stoves for heat.

Griffin said “the most affordable and cleanest energy is the energy we don’t use,” and suggested upgrades that better insulate existing buildings. 

Jim Townsend, counsel for the ALA, said the discussions were productive and that his group and the state share a common goal of finding solutions. Wilbur Rice, of the Adirondack League Club and president of the ALA, said he no longer feared the energy transition, after learning more from the panelists and ALA colleagues.

“I think it’s going to be extremely difficult, but I think a lot of smart people are trying to work on it,” he said.

Can Building with Wood Decarbonise Construction?

By replacing energy-intensive building materials and locking away carbon from the atmosphere, building with sustainable timber could save more than 100Gt of CO₂ by the end of the century – but there is a catch.

The climate impact of the buildings and construction sector is still headed in the wrong direction. Despite booming investment to increase energy efficiency and lower energy intensity, emissions and energy consumption from buildings and construction have rebounded from pandemic levels to an all-time high.

Decarbonising the sector is a priority if there is to be a chance of limiting global warming to even 2°C to avoid the most cataclysmic impacts of climate change. The sector desperately needs to further improve building energy performance, decrease building materials’ carbon footprint, multiply policy commitments alongside action and increase investment in energy efficiency.

Research shows that if mass-timber construction were to become the norm by 2050, annual carbon storage could be as high as 700 million tonnes of carbon instead of just ten million tonnes in a business-as-usual scenario. This would, however, require an optimised use of wood to prevent forest degradation and loss.

Nonetheless, there is a downside to mass-timber construction. Most net-zero scenarios, including those from the International Energy Agency and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, foresee a role for biomass in the energy transition, but if demand for forest products was to grow equally across the economy, there simply would not be enough biomass to go around.

However, there may be a happy middle ground. Ecological forest management, such as ‘close-to-nature’ forestry, promotes a reasoned level of harvest to reap various rewards.

To find out more, read the full article by using the link below: