$147,000 grant to promote biomass energy conservation.

• Position: LOCAL NEWS

The Natural Resource Conservation Service has awarded the Forest Guild of New Mexico a $147,000, one-year Conservation Innovation Grant to promote innovative logging practices that sustain forests and use biomass to create energy in nine Northeast states, including Massachusetts.

The conservation grant is a program of the Natural Resource Conservation Service that invests in innovative conservation technologies with a goal of addressing energy conservation and water quality and quantity, among other natural resource issues.

Michael DeBonis, executive director of the Forest Guild, said: "To meet the woody biomass potential as a renewable energy resource and to assure long-term ecological sustainability, we must understand and be able to apply biomass harvesting guidelines on the ground."

"This one-year grant, if nothing else, gives us the opportunity to get the science right the first time," Mr. DeBonis said.

Congress is considering policy options that might require landowner use of sustainable forest biomass guidelines to participate in incentive programs or supply bioenergy facilities.

"Guidelines for the sustainable harvesting and retention of biomass also present an innovative way...