A new report found biomass energy and wood-pellet production may be worse for human health and air pollution in comparison to fossil fuels across Alabama.

The study showed facilities burning biomass release almost three times the number of pollutants compared with places burning fossil fuels.

Sarav Arunachalam, professor and deputy director of the Institute for the Environment at the University of North Carolina, said while the option has been touted as more carbon-neutral, it could be putting nearby residents at risk.

"There are a lot of hazardous air pollutants also quantified from the study, and they may have other health space endpoints beyond just premature mortality, and these could be cancerous, noncancerous, and so on," Arunachalam explained. "It's a very broad mix of adverse health impacts, but the top one would be fine particulate matter."

Arunachalam pointed out while the demand for biomass within the U.S. remains stagnant, there is a growing market for exporting it to Europe. Biomass contributes to about 2% of electricity production in Alabama.

Edie Juno, forestry specialist for the National Wildlife Federation and co-author of the study, said wood-pellet facilities could be emitting more than they claim on their permits, based on data they found in permit applications and national emissions inventories. She argued it could signal the need for more enforcement.

"We need the state regulatory agencies to be aware of these patterns and really discerning as they're reviewing the permit application," Juno contended. "We probably need support from EPA in terms of enforcement of different air quality permits as well. "

According to the study, biomass contributes three to 17% of the emissions from the entire U.S. energy sector. Both researchers added despite the number being seemingly low, more information is needed to uncover the true effects the facilities have before further investment into the technology.

By Syris Valentine for Grist.
Broadcast version by Eric Galatas for Colorado News Connection reporting for the Solutions Journalism Network-Public News Service Collaboration

We tend to think of buildings as semipermanent structures. Once they go up, decades or even centuries pass before they come down. But when they do, it's usually under the weight of wrecking balls and sledgehammers. The shattered remains of the structures that once sheltered us are then often cast into a landfill. Each year, nearly 150 million tons of this debris piles up in dumps in the U.S. alone.

Globally, the act of erecting new buildings and tearing down old ones consumes roughly a third of all resources extracted from the environment every year and produces just under a third of all the world's waste. But several cities across the U.S. have begun to push the construction sector toward practices that keep materials out of the landfill. The goal: Reuse parts of old buildings in new ones, and recycle the rest.

In 2016, Portland, Oregon, became the first city in the country to institute a deconstruction ordinance, requiring that all single-family homes built before 1940 and slated for removal be deconstructed - that is, taken apart board by board - so their materials can be salvaged for reuse. Since then, more than half a dozen cities from San Antonio to Pittsburgh have followed Portland's example.

"Ideally, what is being pulled out of these houses is being used for their same purpose," says Stephanie Phillips, San Antonio's deconstruction and circular economy program manager. Like Portland's, San Antonio's 2022 ordinance specifically mandates that old, historic homes be deconstructed if they're coming down.

That's at least in part because the best, and sometimes only, way to get the right materials to rehab historic buildings is from a different home built in the same period. As Phillips says, "Rehabbing buildings is looked at as the pinnacle of climate-wise building."

A small number of cities go even further. Boulder, Colorado, is one of only two cities nationwide (the other being Palo Alto, California) that requires deconstruction of any and every building slated to come down, regardless of age and whether it's residential or commercial. Boulder's ordinance also includes what's known as a "mandatory minimum." At least 75 percent of the total weight of a building must be diverted from landfill through either reuse or recycling.

Jackie Kirouac-Fram, executive director of the Portland-based nonprofit ReBuilding Center, believes that a mandatory minimum is necessary to achieve the intent of these deconstruction ordinances: salvaging high-quality materials that homeowners, builders, and craftspeople can then access at affordable rates. Without this requirement, Kirouac-Fram says, Portland has seen particularly low rates of salvage. (Official figures aren't available, and city representatives didn't respond to a request for comment.)

While San Antonio also lacks a mandatory minimum, Phillips says the city's contractors have on average recovered 70 percent of a given building's weight, with over half of the recovered materials going to reuse. Phillips attributes these figures to the thorough, city-sponsored training contractors must go through in order to qualify for San Antonio's list of certified deconstruction contractors.

Meanwhile, in Boulder, despite its mandatory minimum, the city has not provided much training for the local workforce or established certification requirements, according to Emily Freeman, the city's policy advisor on the circular economy. As a result, some contractors may exploit loopholes to meet the requirements without salvaging so much as a single two-by-four, and property owners have few tools to evaluate the bids they receive. They're being asked to compare "apples to kiwis," Freeman says.

In the worst example she has seen to date, a contractor used the foundation - the heaviest part of a building - as well as patio furniture and mulched trees on the property to meet the requirement to divert 75 percent of the building's weight.

This reveals another challenge when it comes to mandatory minimums: Such requirements often don't differentiate between reuse - the ideal form of waste diversion - and recycling. For instance, if lumber isn't sorted and stored so it can later be picked up and incorporated into a new project, it might instead be sent through a chipper and processed into particleboard.

To address these problems, Freeman and her colleagues are looking to revise and strengthen some of Boulder's deconstruction practices, which could include hosting trainings and establishing a certified contractors list, similar to San Antonio's, to ensure everyone has the same playbook of best practices. Freeman hopes that these types of changes would help Boulder to achieve the vision she briefly saw realized in 2023, when the city deconstructed an abandoned hospital. Of the 65-million-pound building, the city recycled or salvaged 60.8 million pounds, or 93.5 percent of the building's weight. This included structural steel that has found its way into two new city-owned buildings: a fire station and a golf course clubhouse.

Taking salvaged materials and getting them into other buildings is what organizations like Kirouac-Fram's ReBuilding Center aim to facilitate. It stores salvaged materials that Portlanders can purchase at low-to-no cost. San Antonio has launched its own Material Innovation Center to find the next best use for salvaged materials, including bus shelters, garden beds, and affordable housing repairs.

But a final challenge remains in many of these cities: getting contractors to use salvaged materials in their projects. In some cases, the problem is a matter of ease and inventory; contractors don't want to waste time browsing stacks of mismatched materials when they may not find what they need. In other cases, builders still need to be convinced that giving old materials a second life in new construction won't compromise a building's integrity.

Boulder has been struggling to close this piece of the reuse loop. Though the city has incorporated many of the metal beams extracted from the old hospital into new city-owned properties, some leftover steel remains. City officials are still in talks with builders in Boulder to find someone to take what's left.

"It's just a matter of convincing the construction world that reused steel is going to be solid," Freeman says. She hopes that as people see other buildings standing strong with salvaged steel, they'll start to use it in projects of their own.


Syris Valentine wrote this article for Grist.


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Businesses large and small are doubling down on their commitment to more sustainable practices, even as lawmakers in North Carolina and other states voice their opposition to Environmental, Social and Governance practices for investments.

North Carolina businesses like TS Designs have decided it is smarter to be at the forefront of the movement, emphasizing transparency and accountability in their supply chains.

Eric Henry, president of TS Designs, said his company has adapted its business model over the years, particularly in response to the challenges of globalization and the negative environmental effects associated with it.

"We decided there's something wrong with that model, when you go outside of your market for product or service, your market delivers," Henry explained. "We grow cotton in North Carolina. So, what we decided to do is just focus on the resources within our community, the state."

The company produces what's known as "Cotton of the Carolinas," a T-shirt made from locally sourced cotton, with a supply chain spanning 700 miles. QR codes on the clothing labels allow people to trace the origins of the materials and the journey of their garment through the supply chain. Henry believes a focus on local farmers puts the planet and people first.

Last summer, North Carolina passed a bill to block state organizations from considering ESG factors in investments and employment decisions. Backers of the bill considered ESG as more of a social issue and argued investments should be made based on the highest financial gains.

Henry countered the term is not a "buzzword," it is a critical business strategy.

"There's 8 billion people on this planet and we need to have as much information to make the best decisions possible," Henry contended. "I don't want to be living in a vacuum. I want as much information as possible. So ESG is very important, how we run our business, how we treat our employees, how we treat the planet. We just have a responsibility."

According to the advisory firm Pleiades Strategy, more than 300 pieces of anti-ESG legislation were introduced in 38 states in the past few years, with 17 of those states signing bills into law.

New maps show the extent of New York State's lead pipe replacement program.

They demonstrate progress in replacing lead service lines, although the state still has an estimated 494,000 of them. The Environmental Protection Agency awarded the state of New York more than $300 million over the last three years for the work but only $104 million has been awarded to municipalities.

Josh Klainberg, senior vice president of the New York League of Conservation Voters, said additional state funds can replace more lines.

"There are 24 projects that were funded from that $104 million that went out, which is great," Klainberg acknowledged. "But as I mentioned, though, there were an additional 85 other projects requesting money as well, totaling $211 million that went unfunded because there's no additional money."

The Rensselaer County Legislature passed a resolution urging New York State to allocate more funding to lead pipe replacement.

The EPA's new Lead and Copper rule expected this October will give municipalities nationwide a decade to replace all existing lead pipes. Klainberg pointed out when it happens, competition for labor and materials will be fierce. The rule's 10-year clock could start in 2027.

State dollars for the work are in the Clean Water Infrastructure Act and the Environmental Bond Act but do not match federal funds. A major challenge to replacing lead service lines is having an accurate inventory. Cities such as Troy are working with homeowners to get the information.

Klainberg emphasized replacing lead pipes benefits a municipality's water infrastructure.

"We spend a tremendous amount of money on that infrastructure," Klainberg noted. "For that last bit, to not consider that part of the overall infrastructure which is the most critical point, this is what I think the rethinking of this inventory project is about."

Beyond national maps, New York's Lead Pipe Right to Know Act requires information about where lead pipes are located to be easily accessible online for New Yorkers to access.


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