Fort Fairfield approves wood chip boiler plan
By Scott Mitchell Johnson
Staff Writer
FORT FAIRFIELD — By a two-thirds majority, voters in Fort Fairfield last Tuesday gave SAD 20 officials the green light to proceed with the construction of a central wood biomass heating plant.
The vote was 556 “Yes” to 259 “No.”
“A lot of people weighed in, and the majority of them supported the project,” said SAD 20 Superintendent Marc Gendron.
Designed to offset at least 95 percent of the 41,696 gallons of heating oil used annually at both schools, residents decided by 68 percent of the vote to proceed with the project.
The total financed amount for the $1,821,142 project will be $1,321,142.
“The project will be self-funding which means that the guaranteed energy savings will pay for the debt service over the financing period for the project,” said Gendron. “No local capital will need to be raised to support the project; local taxes will not be increased to fund this.”
Gendron said he recently found out the district has received $1.3 million QSCAB financing, which is a government program that he said “will allow us to have 0-percent interest on the project.”
The next step, Gendron said, is to meet with the school board and the engineers to determine the timing of the project.
“The two big dominoes have fallen; the 0-percent financing which is very important on a $1.3 million project over 15 years, and the second domino was the referendum approval,” he said. “Now it’s a matter of do we start now, or do we wait till the spring?
“If we wait till the spring, we need a waiver from the United States Department of Agriculture as we received a $500,000 grant which will be administered through the Maine Department of Conservation. They wanted it spent by a certain date, so we need to see if we can get a waiver,” said Gendron. “The biggest thing is talking to the engineers and seeing what effect the winter construction will have on the cost. If we get some extra time, we’ll need to decide whether we start real fast and pour concrete in the winter or whether we wait until spring and start fresh then.”
The superintendent said if the USDA grants a waiver, district officials may still find “it’s in our best interest to put it up now.”
“If we put it up now, there’s a good chance it will be done by March,” said Gendron, “so we can test it out at the end of the heating season and work out any issues with construction, chip delivery, etc. I’d prefer that; to work the bugs out before we run into the next hard heating season.”
The plant — combined with several small efficiency improvements in both the middle/high and elementary schools, which include new domestic hot water heating systems and Variable Frequency Drives (VFDs) on pumps — will save $98,740 in energy costs in the first year of operation based on predicted and historical energy costs.
“The wood chip fired boiler is being installed by local Aroostook County contractors and is expected to provide local jobs both during the construction phase and long-term jobs in the wood products industry for the 30-year anticipated life of the plant,” said Gendron, noting the issue went to referendum because officials changed the design plan. “We’re going with an above-ground storage for the wood chips. The reason we did that is because it saved us some money because where we were going to put the pit, we had problems with ledge and water. State law says that any time you build a building that’s greater than 600 square feet, you have to have voter approval, so that’s why it had to be voted on.”
Though located at Fort Fairfield Middle/Senior High School, the district’s elementary school will also benefit from the project.
“We’re going to pipe the water from the high school to the elementary school underground in insulated steel pipe,” Gendron said. “We’re going to dig a trench, lay the pipe about four feet underground, and the hot water that’s heated by our biomass boiler will go about 1,000 feet to the elementary school, connect to their boiler, and heat the water that will heat that building.”
Gendron said the district is currently spending between $135,000 and $150,000 for oil.
“Of that money, not much of it stays in our community,” he said. “By going to wood chips, instead of that money leaving our area, all the wood chips will be provided locally … anywhere from Houlton to Fort Kent. We’re not importing the chips from Canada or the South, and that will help us provide long-term jobs for the people that work in the woods, as well as those who process and deliver the chips.
“There will also be some temporary jobs in terms of the construction project. I think it’s a win-win for everybody concerned,” said Gendron.
