– by Chris Jensen, May 23, 2014, New Hampshire Public Radio
About 51 percent of the wood purchased for the new Burgess BioPower biomass plant in Berlin during its first two months of operation came from New Hampshire, according to a new “sustainability” report filed with the state’s Site Evaluation Committee.
Thirty-five percent came from Maine.
Five percent from Vermont.
Eight percent from Massachusetts.
And “one truck load” came from Canada.
The facility began producing electricity in November and purchased about 80,000 tons of wood chips by the end of 2013.
When the Site Evaluation Committee was considering the project in 2010 the developer, Laidlaw Berlin Biomass, wouldn’t promise it would buy all its wood from the North Country.
But Laidlaw officials told the SEC it would make economic sense to buy wood close to Berlin to save on transportation.
The plant is now owned by Cate Street Capital of Portsmouth. A spokesman for Cate Street has predicted the company will put about $25 million a year into the forest economy buying 750,000 tons of wood chips.
