ADAGE: KMAS Broadcast - More Questions Than Answers

I attended the live broadcast with about 200 other folks from the community. All Port Commissioners (Hupp, Miles, and Wallitner) were there as was County Commissioner Ross Gallagher. ADAGE leadership, management, public relations and paid consultants sat on a panel answering questions from the public. The KMAS team selected from the questions that we provided prior to start of the broadcast. We were allowed to provide additional questions as the meeting proceeded but none of my follow up questions were asked. My one major criticism of the process was that we could not ask follow-up questions. At times some of the more outspoken audience members would interject themselves to push for more complete answers but that was the exception.

A common theme that popped up over and over is the concern residents have about property values. After all this is the single largest investment that many of us hold. Just a 1% drop in property values in Mason County represents a $76 million loss to homeowners. We may not understand the engineers and the toxicologists but we sure have a handle on what it means to see our home values dropping in price because home buyers don't want to live near a facility that burns more than a ton of woody biomass every minute, 24/7.

I attended to get two major questions answered. First, I hoped they would explain how they came up with the $125 million during construction and $60 million annually once ADAGE is operational. I was disappointed. Who amongst us understands what "M Plan" modeling is? Not me and from my unscientific polling afterward - I wasn't alone. Tom Deponty's response didn't help me to understand whether there is really anything behind these numbers as advertised by ADAGE in the Shelton Mason Journal.

Secondly, I wanted to understand whether the slash needed to fuel the facility is really available in Mason County. I'm trying to narrow down whether Mason County is going to realize the increase in employment ADAGE has promised. Isn't that our ultimate goal to increase employment in this county?

Here's what I've discovered in my research. Green Diamond owns 64 percent of all the designated forest land in Mason County. All the other landowners have far fewer acres of forest land. Compare the 176,428 acres for Green Diamond to another large owner, Douglas Fir, with 4,342 acres followed by many more with even fewer acres.

My question was not addressed during the broadcast so I decided to ask one of the ADAGE representatives, Brian Anderson. He told me that in Belgium, for example, they were amazed at how much woody biomass they could get from small forest landholdings. With all the subsidies the federal and state governments are providing to sellers of woody biomass, I wouldn't be surprised at how many of the small designated forest landowners will be hopping on the gravy train to contract with ADAGE. Here's what I'm wondering today: will Green Diamond have enough slash from their 176,428 acres to support both ADAGE and the Simpson facilities?

But I wasn't the only one who didn't get my questions answered - neither did Paul Stamets, local businessman and owner of Funghi Perfecti. His very thoughtful questions were provided to KMAS prior to the broadcast. I know. I delivered Paul's questions myself.

Keep pushing for answers, Mason County. This is a big deal and well worth the effort it takes to understand what the costs and benefits are.