Soil
&
Mulch Producer NEWS
Montreal Adds Major Compost Centre at Dorval
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ontreal, Quebec–The Montreal agglomeration council is looking at an industrial site near the airport for a new regional composting centre to collect organic waste, reports montrealgazette.com. The council will lease the Dorval property from Aéroports de Montréal. Regional centers will collect organic waste to be trucked to the site, and it could recover about 50,000 metric tons of organic material annually. A second site is being considered for Montreal East, LaSalle or St. Michel, resulting in two composting centers, two bio-gas centers and a pretreatment center for household organic waste. The as yet undetermined cost will be part of a $215 million investment. It is part of an island-wide initiative that follows a 2009 directive from Quebec to prevent household organic and recyclable waste from ending up in landfills with a plan to serve all buildings of eight units or less with collection of regular garbage, paper/plastic recycling and green/organic waste collections by 2014. The compost will be used by municipalities for fertilizer and soil amendment, offered to residents and turned into bio-fuels.
CEI Ventures, Backer of Coast of Maine, Looking for Other Eco-Firm Investments
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ortland, OR–Presshearld.com reports that venture capital firm CEI Ventures, a for-profit arm of Coastal Enterprises, wants to invest $10 million into environmentally responsible companies and has raised over half of that now in a venture capital fund called Coastal Ventures III. It looks to invest in companies with growth potential, diversity and the creation of low- to moderate-income jobs with benefits. Since it was founded in 1994, CEI Ventures has raised $41 million and invested in 35 companies, including Coast of Maine Organic Products, which makes nutrient-rich mulch and garden soil from discarded lobster and crab shells and blueberry bushes. Founder Carlos Quijano invested the money in his compost facility in Washington County and other areas of his Portland-based business. Today, Coast of Maine employs five people in Portland, a sales representative in Connecticut and as many as 11 part-time and full-time employees at the facility in Washington County.
Rising Temperatures in West Mean Rising Outbreaks of Beetles
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oscow, ID–The potential for outbreaks of spruce and mountain pine beetles in western North America’s forests is expected to grow in the future, says a study by USDA Forest Service researchers and their colleagues published in BioScience. The study is the first comprehensive analysis of the effects of climate change on bark beetles, which cause death in cone-bearing trees in the western part of North America. The study synthesized what is currently known about the effects of climate change on several species of bark beetles and used these models to look at the spruce beetle and mountain pine beetle. There is likely to be a major increase in areas of spruce forest dominated by the kind of spruce beetles that reproduce annually, rather than biennially, leading to larger populations. And the range of mountain pine beetles will likely expand into the central and Eastern United States. The study was a partnership among the Forest Service’s three western research stations; the Western Wildland Environmental Threat Assessment Center; the Canadian Forest Service; and the University of Idaho, Moscow.
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Soil & Mulch Producer News May / June 2011