County won’t pursue carbon credit program

Taylor County won’t be getting involved in the carbon credit business, at least not anytime soon.

Forest administrator Jake Walcisak said the long and short of it is that Blue Source, the carbon developer the county had been meeting with, was no longer interested in working with Taylor County because the project isn’t large enough. He said Blue Source has evaluated the 15,400 acres of county forest. He said the analysis showed in the first 10 years, the forest would generate 315,000 tons of carbon storage and at the current market rate of $9.50 per ton, the project value was $3 million with $2.2 million of that being paid to the county. Walcisak said Blue Source needed a minimum of 400,000 tons to meet its business model. He said Taylor County would need 20,000 acres of county forest to reach 400,000 tons.

Walcisak said there are larger county forest and large private groups that are more economical to do business with and that Blue Source was still interested in doing business with Taylor County in the future. He said $2.2 million was not insignifi cant to Taylor County, but apparently it was insignificant to Blue Source.

Walcisak said there is an opportunity for several counties to form a cooperative, but since it requires a 40-year contract, Taylor County would in a sense be married to these other counties. He said just because two counties get along now doesn’t mean that will be the case in the future. He said for example, if there is a non-compliance issue in one county, it would affect the other counties as well since they are a part of the cooperative.

Walcisak said he was optimistic that as carbon becomes more difficult to acquire, smaller projects like Taylor County will become more interesting to developers.

Committee member Gene Knoll said as he reads more and more about this, it would be wise for Taylor County to sit on the sidelines for the time being.

Walcisak said there were four or five other counties “leading the charge” and agreed it would be a good idea for Taylor County to stand back and see what happens. He said there was a possibility the county could miss out on an investment opportunity by not jumping in right away, but that was a risk they had to take.

Committee member Mike Bub suggested as inventory becomes tighter, the county could get a better price. Walcisak said with market speculation, you never know what supply and demand dynamics will be in the future. He said maybe carbon becomes easier to acquire because more small projects are joining together to make more carbon readily available or the larger projects are needed and the supply of carbon on the market becomes smaller. Walcisak said they will just have to keep monitoring the program in the future and see what develops before deciding where to go from here.

The committee agreed it didn’t know enough about the program and how it might work in the future for the county to get involved with it at this time.

Buildings and Grounds truck request

The committee approved a request from Buildings, Grounds and Parks to purchase one of the Forestry Department trucks and to recommend to the Finance Committee it approve the sale as well.

Walcisak told the committee he had been approached by Joe Svejda of Buildings, Grounds and Parks about purchasing one of Forestry’s trucks to replace their oldest truck, a 2008 Dodge Ram which had been acquired from the Sheriff’s Department. He said the truck only has 105,000 miles on it, but is in major disrepair and needs to be replaced as soon as possible.

Knoll said that wasn’t a lot of miles on the truck and asked what was wrong with it. Walcisak said it was badly rusted, noting they see a lot of that with Sheriff’s Department handed down vehicles due to the vehicles spending so much time on roads that have been salted in the winter.

Walcisak said Buildings and Grounds had approximately $15,000 to spend on a replacement vehicle and asked if it could purchase one of Forestry’s trucks. He said the truck in question would be a 2017 F-150, which has a trade-in value of $18,500. Walcisak said with the $15,000 and what Forestry had in its outlay account, they could purchase a new truck, which would cost between $33,000 and $37,000 with the municipal discount. He said if the truck was ordered now, it would arrive in January or February of next year. Walcisak said there was enough money between the two departments that no additional money would be needed. He said Forestry typically replaces its vehicleS every six years and is not scheduled to replace the F-150 yet, but the vehicle would still remain in the county possession.

Zenner said he always had problems with requests like this. He said over the years, departments have come to Forestry for money and that it is not the Finance Committee. Zenner said if Buildings and Grounds wants a vehicle that is not budgeted for, it should go to the Finance Committee to see if it can get the money that way. He said it felt like they were circumventing the Finance Committee.

Walcisak said in the past, departments have come to Forestry and asked for money or one of their trucks and no money exchanged handS. He said Buildings and Grounds was offering to purchase the truck with what funds were available in its vehicle account, which takes care of a need of one department with budgeted money from both departments without the need to dip into extra funds from another account.

Knoll said in today’s economy, the 2017 truck is worth more than $18,500, but since the county would continue to own and maintain the vehicle, it made sense to do it.

Bub agreed it made sense from the county’s point of view to approve the sale, but felt the Finance committee should be made aware of the sale. Zenner said he had no problem with approving the sale and sending it on to Finance with the recommendation it approves the sale as well.

Finance director Larry Brandl said he wasn’t aware of the request until after the fact and would have liked to see it go to Finance first. That said, Brandl said he agreed with the others that the request made sense to the county, noting that Buildings and Grounds would probably continue to use the truck for another eight to 10 years. Walcisak concurred. He said Forestry’s policy is to trade in a vehicle every six years while it still has some value. Walcisak said Buildings and Grounds continue to drive its vehicles until they are literally falling apart, which is the case with the 2008 truck.

The committee approved submitting a Sustainable Forestry Grant application for $10,625 to improve 0.7 miles of an existing frozen ground logging road to three-season use.

Walcisak said the department has used the grant program for a number of projects in the past, including the spruce plantation, drone purchase, and deer exclusion and browse monitoring. He said the road crosses approximately 400 feet of private land, which the county has a signed easement agreement for, and would not be part of the project.