My story is not unique. I am a logger and lifelong resident of Loudon with a deep connection to this state – my family came to New Hampshire from Scotland in 1651.
Today, my wife, Jamie, and I own Magoon Logging in Loudon. Magoon Logging is like hundreds of small logging businesses across the state. We are included among the 900 jobs and $250 million of annual economic activity that are supported by the state’s six independent biomass power plants. By working in the logging and biomass chip markets, my company creates jobs and provides a livelihood for my employees and their families.
The biomass industry supports jobs in large and small companies, and in our company we spend more than $600,000 locally each year buying stumpage, fuel, equipment and paying our crew. For us, “local” is pretty close, since the farthest woodlot we have worked in 17 years is just 18 miles from home.
As a professional logger, I have seen firsthand how biomass markets have improved the quality of my landowners’ timberlands. Like me, almost all of my landowners are longtime timberland owners dedicated to growing quality timber. Most of my work is selective harvesting on woodlots between 20 and 50 acres where I’m removing the low-quality timber to make biomass fuel chips for use as fuel in biomass power plants or fuel to heat local greenhouses.
As we produce biomass we also selectively harvest some saw logs for lumber production.
For my company and many like it, biomass is an important part of our business. It enables us to do the selective harvesting our landowners want, and it contributes to the state’s economy.
As for Magoon Logging, every year we produce more than 500 loads of low-grade timber (e.g. wood chips), 1.5 million to 1.8 million board feet of saw logs, and 1,500 cords of log-length firewood. Also, in addition to my employees, my company’s production also supports jobs in New Hampshire sawmills, wood yards and biomass power plants.
Collectively, timber in New Hampshire contributes $1.4 billion to the economy while supporting more than 12,800 jobs.
Lately, a lot of politicians have been talking about biomass. When I went to a legislative hearing last week on Senate Bill 365, I heard state representatives debate whether biomass power was worth keeping and heard them say biomass power benefits just the North Country. Me, my family and my crew are great examples of how biomass power benefits the entire state. The wood chips we produce for biomass power are a great way to improve timber stands while making something we all use – electricity.
Every day hundreds of loggers and their crews enter New Hampshire’s forests to earn a living cutting timber and making wood chips. This has occurred for hundreds of years. And for the sake of me, my wife and our three children, we want to see it continue. We hope the politicians in New Hampshire support us and thousands of New Hampshire families like ours by supporting our biomass power plants.
(Matt Magoon of Loudon is the 2017 New Hampshire Timberland Owners Association Outstanding Logger of the Year.)