o WHAT: Clark County is studying the feasibility of locating a biomass power plant in downtown Vancouver to heat and cool five buildings.
o STUDY: A more in-depth study of the plan will be posted online at http://www.clark.wa.gov/districtheating as soon as today and no later than Wednesday.
o MEETING: The Clark County Board of Commissioners will hold a work session on the next level of the study at 10:30 a.m. April 20 at the Public Service Center, 1300 Franklin St.
If the Clark County Board of Commissioners was looking for a fan base for their proposed biomass plant for downtown Vancouver, they didn’t find it with several members of the City Council on Monday.
o WHAT: Clark County is studying the feasibility of locating a biomass power plant in downtown Vancouver to heat and cool five buildings.
o STUDY: A more in-depth study of the plan will be posted online at http://www.clark.wa.gov/districtheating as soon as today and no later than Wednesday.
o MEETING: The Clark County Board of Commissioners will hold a work session on the next level of the study at 10:30 a.m. April 20 at the Public Service Center, 1300 Franklin St.
In a joint workshop of the two groups, county staff said that their feasibility study — funded by $225,000 from a federal energy block grant — shows that the system would be “state of the art,” provide sustainable heating to five buildings and wouldn’t have a negative effect on downtown.
But several city councilors didn’t appear sold, which could jeopardize the whole project: The Vancouver City Council must approve a zone change to make a power plant an allowed use at the planned location on the corner of West 13th and Harney streets, west of the Clark County Jail, currently used as a parking lot. City staff would also have to approve permits.
Councilor Pat Campbell said that twice now county staff members have given presentations to the city council showing only the positives of the plant, when in fact, there’s plenty of examples of dysfunctional and unsustainable biomass plants around the country. Campbell has been critical of the project since the county decided to move forward with a feasibility study last summer, questioning it by email and in other public meetings.
“You’ve made it an adversarial process by just giving us positive notes,” he said. “I have a problem with that. We can’t make our decision on skewed information. So for me, we’re dead in the water.”
“We didn’t mean this to be adversarial,” Commissioner Steve Stuart said to Campbell. “We’re not the ones who went and spoke to the news; that wasn’t us.”
The biomass boiler system (fueled by tree tops, limbs and the detritus of producing lumber) would provide central heating, cooling and domestic hot water for five county buildings: the Public Service Center, courthouse, jail, 911 center and juvenile courthouse. The biomass plant would be built and operated by a private company, Clark County Program Development Manager Marlia Jenkins said.
But Vancouver Councilor Jack Burkman said that one of the examples the county gave as a model biomass plant — at the University of South Carolina — hasn’t actually been operational for three years. Other places have had trouble getting forest byproducts, known as hog fuel, to burn hot enough to create steam heat, and have resorted to coal or dryer used lumber.
“Is a power plant in Vancouver … going to be what we expect it to be?” Burkman asked. “That creates a lot of concern for me.”
Councilor Larry Smith also said that he’s concerned about the impact putting a power plant with a smokestack so close to where the city hopes to see $1 billion in private waterfront development.
County Commissioner Tom Mielke, however, emphasized that the City Council needs to discuss the policy of the zone change, not necessarily the technology behind biomass, and asked for a list of its concerns.
“I think that I hear that we’re getting sideways from what we’re asking,” he said.
County staff has said that Clark County would pay about $210,000 per year for renewable energy, comparable to what it currently pays for natural gas, but will save approximately $100,000 a year by cutting back its use of massive chiller units, which are part of the air conditioning system. In addition, the county would charge $75,000 a year to the company to lease the land.
“Yes there are places where these aren’t working well,” Jenkins said following the meeting. But she said the county’s plant is much smaller than many of the failed biomass facilities, and that the county will use mainstream, proven technology.
The county’s second, more in-depth feasibility study will be released on the county’s website by Wednesday afternoon, Jenkins said. The board will hold a workshop on that study on April 20. The next step for the county will be to find a private partner to operate the plant, Jenkins said.
“They’ll do their corporate due diligence and they’ll decide if this is a good project or not,” she said.
Andrea Damewood: 360-735-4542 or andrea.damewood@columbian.com.
