Tighter supply of Christmas trees sends prices higher
Yes, Virginia, Santa Claus will find plenty of Christmas trees this year.
Despite what some are calling a “shortage” of evergreens, if you want one, you will find a fragrant tree suitable for sheltering colorfully wrapped gifts.
“We’ve got plenty of trees,” said Erica Postle, co-owner of Alum Polaris Christmas Tree Farm in southern Delaware Country. “Even if you want that Griswold-family 17-foot tree, you can get that.”
The national market for Christmas trees is tighter this year, thanks to a blend of economics and Mother Nature.
Christmas trees can take 10 years to reach the right size, and a decade ago, as the economy sank into the Great Recession, fewer trees were bought, so fewer trees were planted.
Further depressing supply, some tree farms succumbed to the recession in the big growing areas of North Carolina and Oregon, which sell trees to most of the country’s retail centers and tree lots. The tighter supply might mean higher prices.
“The reason for the tight market, like last year, is supply and demand,” said Doug Hundley, spokesman for the National Christmas Tree Association.
Last year, CAARE tried to become a participant in the application for the Timber Road III wind farm in Paulding County before the Ohio Power Siting Board. An administrative-law judge rejected the attempt, saying that the group had not shown that it would be directly affected by the wind farm.
That case, which is one of several in which CAARE has shown interest, is notable because of a filing in which the group spells out its mission “to protect, preserve and promote America’s affordable and reliable coal-fired electricity generation.”
Other than that statement, the group has said almost nothing about itself.
“I act as legal counsel for intervenors and such, but I’m not authorized to speak to the press about anything, so I can’t,” John
Stock, an attorney at the Columbus office of Benesch Friedlander Coplan & Aronoff, told Midwest Energy News. He did not respond to The Dispatch’s request for comment.
Midwest Energy News is published by Fresh Energy, a Minnesota nonprofit group that is an advocate for clean-energy policies.
The Power Siting Board reviews and issues rulings on large projects that generate or transport energy. Any person, group or company affected by a project can seek to intervene. If approved by an administrative-law judge, the intervening party becomes a formal part of the case, with the ability to file briefs and take other actions that are part of the case record.
The upshot for windenergy advocates is that additional participants in cases — especially if the new players oppose wind energy — will increase costs by adding to the time and legal expenses involved in addressing issues that the participants raise.
At the same time, some residents who live near wind farms have argued that the state’s process is tilted in favor of wind-energy developers.
The residents might find an ally in CAARE. Stock, the group’s attorney, also represents several residents who oppose the Icebreaker Windpower project proposed for Lake Erie, north of Cleveland. It is not clear whether Stock’s involvement as an advocate for the residents in the case is connected in any way to his work for CAARE, which is not a formal part of the Icebreaker case.
Midwest Energy News notes that Stock has done work for Murray Energy, an Ohio-based coal company. A Murray Energy spokesman told the website that his company is not a part of CAARE.