Letter: Where will all the dead trees go?

Storm debris is everywhere in Buncombe County in quantities we’ve never seen before. Where will it all go? We are told the county will pick it up, and the Army Corps of Engineers will help. Both deserve our thanks, but what exactly are their plans? The Swannanoa stump dump is already full. The county landfill can’t possibly accommodate all this stuff. And property owners are impatient to have it carted off.

Without clearer guidance, folks are likely to resort to just burning it. Given the wildfire risks left by the storm, that would be a bad result, not to speak of the impact that widespread burning would have on our air quality.

Turning woody material into mulch would give us much better protection against drought and would feed the soil instead of soiling the air. But how much can realistically be processed that way? Could the rest be turned into landfill? Where? And if landfill is an answer, is it possible that locations other than the county landfill could also capture methane off the rotting process? How about investing in a big biochar facility? That at least might compensate for the loss of so many trees that once drained carbon dioxide out of our air.

One way or another, how we handle this mess will have big impacts on our natural environment. We just lost immense numbers of beautiful and often very old trees. What will become of them? The least we can do is give them a proper burial.

— Erik Bendix
Asheville