Activists Shut Down Seneca Biomass Incinerator in Eugene, Oregon

- by Cas­ca­dia For­est Defend­ers, July 7, 2014, For­est Defense Now

Scores of activists with Cas­ca­dia For­est Defend­ers and Earth First! con­verged on the Seneca Jones bio­mass plant this morn­ing to protest the company’s pri­va­ti­za­tion of pub­lic lands in the Elliott State For­est and ongo­ing pol­lu­tion in West Eugene.

Cur­rent­ly sev­er­al peo­ple have locked them­selves to equip­ment at the plant, effec­tive­ly block­ing the “truck dump” where bio­mass is loaded into the incin­er­a­tor. A ban­ner has been dropped off of a tow­er read­ing: “Seneca Jones: Pri­va­tiz­ing the coast range, pol­lut­ing West Eugene.”

The activists are bring­ing atten­tion to Seneca Jones Timber’s role in pri­va­tiz­ing the Elliott State For­est. This month Seneca closed on their pur­chase of 788 acres in the Elliott, called East Hak­ki Ridge. Co-own­er of Seneca Kathy Jones recent­ly expressed the company’s inten­tion to clearcut East Hak­ki and replace it with Dou­glas fir plantation.

Cas­ca­dia For­est Defend­er Richard Haley com­ment­ed, “How­ev­er Kathy Jones paints it, her com­pa­ny is a bad neigh­bor every­where it oper­ates. Here in Eugene, Seneca pol­lutes. In the Elliott, Seneca clearcuts and puts up ‘no tres­pass­ing’ signs in pris­tine, nev­er before logged for­est. East Hak­ki is no longer a place where locals can go hunt, fish, hike, camp or watch birds. Now it is cor­po­rate property.”

Coos Bay cit­i­zen sci­ence group Coast Range For­est Watch doc­u­ment­ed Mar­bled Mur­relet nest­ing behav­ior in East Hak­ki Ridge in May. The bird is fed­er­al­ly pro­tect­ed under the Endan­gered Species Act, which pro­hibits actions that injure or kill threat­ened species–including destruc­tion of habi­tat. A month after Mar­bled Mur­relets were found in East Hak­ki, con­ser­va­tion law orga­ni­za­tions filed to sue Seneca Jones in the event of log­ging in the tim­ber sale. Mur­relets were also found in two tim­ber sales pur­chased by tim­ber com­pa­ny Rose­burg For­est Prod­ucts. Anoth­er par­cel is up for sale this fall, and the State Land Board is con­sid­er­ing pri­va­tiz­ing the entire forest.

Despite Seneca’s claim of being sus­tain­able, the bio­mass plant failed its first EPA air pol­lu­tion test in 2011 but still request­ed more state funds to off­set its pro­duc­tion costs. In spite of its high impact on local air qual­i­ty, Seneca receives 10 mil­lion dol­lars in tax cred­its from the state of Ore­gon under the Busi­ness Ener­gy Tax Cred­it Program.

“The plant has had a bad rep­u­ta­tion in this com­mu­ni­ty since its open­ing,” said West Eugene res­i­dent Matthew Hawks. “It’s mar­ket­ing itself as a ‘green’ solu­tion in my neigh­bor­hood, but is actu­al­ly harm­ing the envi­ron­ment around us, espe­cial­ly the air we breathe.”

The plant, which only employs 11 peo­ple, releas­es an esti­mat­ed 17,900 pounds of air tox­ins into West Eugene Neigh­bor­hoods annu­al­ly, in addi­tion to the 73,000 pounds released each year from the mill itself. There are three schools with­in three miles of the Seneca bio­mass facility.

“While clearcut­ting and pri­va­ti­za­tion in the Elliott State For­est is done in the name of pub­lic schools, this irre­spon­si­ble com­pa­ny is tak­ing mil­lions of pub­lic dol­lars and impact­ing the health and safe­ty of school chil­dren in their own neigh­bor­hood. It feels real­ly twist­ed,” said Cas­ca­dia For­est Defend­er Cordelia Finley.

The Eugene-based Cas­ca­dia For­est Defend­ers car­ried out this action with activists from across the con­ti­nent fol­low­ing an annu­al Earth First! camp-out in the woods of South­ern Ore­gon, called the Earth First! Round Riv­er Rendezvous.