EVERGREEN KISSES BIOMASS GOOD BYE

Submitted to Shelton Blog by Pat Rasmussen Mason County Progressive

Evergreen Declines Biomass Grant
Withdraws Legislative Funding Request
Project Not Moving Forward

To Staff, Faculty, TESC Crier:

I want to share an important update on the biomass gasification project. As you may know, we told the state Department of Commerce that if we could not give them a firm commitment for use of their $3.7 million grant for our biomass gasification project by April 1, we would decline the funding. This week vice president John Hurley met with Commerce and formally declined the grant. Because our overall funding scenario for this project included an interdependent combination of projected fuel savings, college funds/borrowing, grant funds and potential state capital budget funds, when we declined the DOC grant we also withdrew our capital request for biomass gasification from the state budget process.

While the Sustainability Council is still concluding its work on its feasibility study and recommendations – and will forward those to the vice presidents soon and subsequently share them with the broader community, these financial developments mean that the project is not financially feasible at this time and will not move forward.

This decision is not based on the merits of the project itself. We have not yet completed our report, but I can say that our preliminary findings from more than a year of work indicate that the project could meet many of the environmental, operational and economic criteria the college established for a replacement of natural gas for campus heating. A key question remains regarding the specific quantity of Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified fuel available. There is also a need for a project-specific carbon analysis to verify and quantify carbon benefit. These two items would require some additional study.

As you may know, the Thurston County Commissioners implemented a one-year moratorium on permits for such projects to study potential impacts and code implications. While the Commission also announced an intention to form a technical advisory group on biomass, which Evergreen offered to participate in, that has not occurred and it is our understanding that it will not occur soon. The moratorium not only leaves us unable to proceed for nearly a year (a significant reason we declined the Commerce grant), but it also leaves the status of future codes and permitting related to biomass too uncertain to pursue the project.

The upcoming Sustainability Council report will not answer every question about biomass gasification, but it should provide a valuable resource to others or to the college should we decide to revisit this proposal in the future. Regardless of the status of biomass gasification, issues of sustainability will remain at the core of our academic and operational work.

Given the enormous amount of learning that’s occurred, I look forward to sharing the biomass feasibility study and recommendations when they are complete. I expect that to be within the next couple of weeks.

Steve Trotter
Evergreen Sustainability Council Chair