Many days throughout the months of Sept through May the woodsmoke from big outdoor woodstoves is so thick it looks like fog and we cannot work or play outdoors in the Town of Colrain, MA.

 We already have so much air pollution from burning brush and wood by neighbors trying to save money to heat their homes, that the particulate air pollution is often higher than in urban areas where wood burning is prohibited.

If regulations allow biomass incinerators, then all of MA will experience increased air and noise pollution. The forested areas will have increased use of noisy, gas powered chain saws and trucks cutting wood and moving it to locations where it will be burned along with construction debris. This type of wood buring is highly polluting and releases massive amounts of CO2 due to the use of fossil fuels to cut and move wood.

Even high temperature burning will quickly release huge quantities of CO2 along with lots of smoke and particulates and it is extremely tempting and very easy to add toxins from construction debris that can easily be mixed in on a regular basis to make more money ofr the comapnies running wood based  biomass facilities.

If we cut down our forests they will no longer be producing oxygen. Instead we will gradually destroy our recreation areas, our hunting and fishing areas, our healthy watersheds that feed our extremely valuable reservoirs of drinking water for all our cities and thousands of wells.

There will be increased erosion problems and traffic problems on our many bridges on country roads which still have not been repaired after hurricane Irene.

We have huge potential for wind farms off the coast and need to develop this first, along with developing a smart grid that maximizes the use of solar and wind power.

We need to repair our gas leaks so that we use natural gas much more efficiently.

Our farms can make biogas by mixing animal manure with food processing wastes and create tons of valuable compost, too. This process IS sustainable and cuts down on both methane and CO2 production.

Please consult with engineers and environmental scientists and do not allow increases in the burning of wood. We already are cutting down our forests fast enough!

Thank you,

Emma Stamas

5Gilbert Drive

COlrain, MA 01340