Photo: One of three local slash piles waiting to be burned in the Shingletown area.
Following a logging operation, timber companies are left with decisions of what to do with huge piles of slash left over: either burn it on site, haul it to a plant such as Wheelabrator to burn for electricity, or chip it on site and let the nutrients turn to soil. Any of these methods cost money and release CO2 into the atmosphere. Leaving dead or misshapen logs and chipped wood onsite to decompose naturally would replenish the land with nutrients and return the CO2 to the carbon cycle. The cost of just 5 mpg diesel trucks hauling the slash is high and adds to the CO2 released.
Whichever method a logging company chooses, it shows that logging is not the carbon-free operation that Cal Fire and the California Board of Forestry assume when they ignore CEQA accountability for greenhouse gases released in Timber Harvest Plans (THP). THPs approved by Cal Fire assume that 100 years or more from the time a tree is cut all the carbon will be replenished through new forest growth. In some cases that is true, but the earth doesn’t have 100 years, especially if a timber company uses a 60-year rotation for clear-cuts it will always be behind in carbon sequestration.
We were contacted by local residents in Shingletown concerned about a slash pile that will be burned in the future. SEA contacted the Shasta County Air Quality Control and it is legal to burn and depending on the area the material is collected from it could require a state or local permit which is easy to obtain.For a detailed scientific analysis go here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_fkH_OuweBuqSk9y3clL1LaU1xQDnqXw/view
