Kellogg schools may use wood heat to save money

ASSOCIATED PRESS

KELLOGG -- Voters in the Idaho Panhandle will decide Nov. 1 whether Kellogg becomes the latest Idaho school district to switch to using wood fuel to heat classrooms and avoid escalating natural gas prices.

A $9.5 million bond includes funding for a biomass system that burns wood chips, spindly trees, and fibrous organic debris to boil water for steam heating in school buildings. Voters will be asked to repay only $5.4 million of the bond amount, with the balance coming from grants, subsidies and a $3.3 million energy cost savings being guaranteed by the biomass boiler contractor, Siemens, over the course of the 20-year bond.

The fate of the Kellogg biomass bond is being watched by several school districts in the Pacific Northwest, said David Naccarato of Siemens. The company recently completed the first biomass installation in an Idaho school, with the Council School District in McCall expected to fire up its new wood-fired furnace Friday.

"We've not had any problem getting fuel," Naccarato said. "There's more than enough. In fact, we've been told we're the Saudi Arabia of biomass."

Another school district in Darby, Mont., also has switched to heat generated through burning biomass and has cut power bills by 70 percent. The Kellogg biomass system would burn about 600 tons of wood chips each year, and school officials believe the fuel is readily available nearby.

"When we see each fall the slash piles burning and the smoke covering the Silver Valley, if we can utilize that for the schools, that would certainly be a plus for the community," said Greg Godwin, Kellogg School District superintendent

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