Gloria Alonso Cruz had only just started working on environmental justice issues at a community organization in Stockton, California when she learned about a proposal to sell wood pellets from the town’s port to overseas energy markets.
Golden State Natural Resources plans to construct two wood pellet plants in Lassen and Tuolumne counties, about 250 miles north of Stockton, with the goal of exporting a million tons a year. While forest-based biomass may sound innocuous, every part of the pellet production chain bears an environmental justice or pollution risk, says Rita Vaughan Frost, forest advocate at Natural Resources Defense Council.
First, trees are logged and stacked on trucks to be driven to processing facilities. There, the wood is turned into small pellets, similar to rabbit food. Then, diesel trucks transport the material hundreds of…