Agriculture Secretary Vilsack Announces that USDA has approved a conditional commitment in the amount of $232.5 million to ZeaChem Boardman Biorefinery, LLC through the Biorefinery Assistance Program. The 25 million gallon per year refinery to be located along the Columbia River will use high yield fermentation technology to produce advanced biofuels and chemicals. The feedstocks will consist of 30% agricultural residues and 70% woody biomass from a local hybrid poplar farm. The poplar biomass has been certified by the Forest Sustainability Council as an environmentally-responsible, sustainable feedstock. The Lower Columbia River Hybrid Poplar Farm now operated by GreenWood Resources was among the first industry-lead project that collaborated on woody crop research with the US Department of Energy’s Biomass Feedstock Development Program and more recently it has continued it’s collaboration with the Department of Energy’s Sun Grant Initiative and several USDA programs including the Biomass Crop Assistance Program. The Lower Columbia River Hybrid Poplar Farm has and continues to be a model of what can be achieved with woody crop production in the U.S.