Banadad Ski Trail Carbon Offset Award Announced

Seagull Lake Resident, Jim Raml was the recipient of this year’s Banadad Ski Trail Carbon Offset Award of $134.44. Raml is planting some five thousand trees on his property ravaged by last Spring’s Ham Lake Fire. The planting of his property got underway this week.

“This award,” according to Ted Young, Banadad Trail Manager, “should at least help Jim plant a small portion of the tree needed to reforest his burned over property.”

According to calculation made at the end of the ski season this year’s maintenance and snowmobile grooming of the Banadad released 1.733 tons of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere. The CO2 was produced by five mid size cars and one large van traveling some 3900 miles with volunteers maintenance crews to and from the Twin Cities to the trail, and 995 miles of snowmobile trail grooming.

In calculating the cost of off-setting this carbon the Chicago Climate Exchange's "Forest Accumulation Tables” for the amounts of CO2 that can be sequestered/acre by age group of white and red pine surviving for a least ten years was used. This was then multiplied by the amount of CO2 the Trail produced times the number of trees planted/acre times the cost/tree. From this it was determined that in order to sequester the carbon the Banadad produced this past year 335 trees would have to be planted at cost of $.134.44.

“It should also be noted” Young went on to state “that, Raml was the driving force behind and the author of a quarter of a million dollar Scenic Byways grant application, that if approved, will provide much of the funds necessary for the Gunflint Ranger District to implement their proposed Ham Lake Fire reforestation program.”