Along a rural stretch of State Road 100 in Putnam County, heavy machinery rumbles across swaths of land, downing scrawny trees and dragging them by the bunch to a chipper. Seconds later, that machine spits out a stream of wood chips into the back of a semi-trailer.
It is early November, and a work crew with Perry-based M.A. Rigoni Inc. has spent weeks on the sprawling Roberts Ranch Game Preserve near Florahome, taking out sand pine, turkey oak and other trees and cleaning up the scraps left after a recent timber harvest. Leaving small branches, leaves, pine needles and stumps behind, the crew will truck about 380 tons of wood removed from the site to the Gainesville Renewable Energy Center as fuel for the biomass plant.
As concerns swirl about the potential negative economic impact from a power plant that has forced an increase in electric rates that are already among the highest in the state, forest industry members who supply the plant see a potential boon through a new marketplace for previously unsellable wood.
“It’s created a new viable market for a product instead of leaving it in piles to rot or be burned in an open field,” said Richard Schwab, manager of procurement and new-business development at M.A. Rigoni. “It is the lowest common denominator. It is the bottom rung of the wood fiber industry.”
Schwab said his company added a crew earlier in the year to focus on fuel for the biomass plant and, for the first time in five years, brought a positive outlook for the business’ future.
From The Epoch Times: https://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/411942-biomass-plant-has-extensive-wood-network/?photo=2