A diagram of the proposed wood chip boiler that would heat the school, pool, borough admin building, and library. (Photo from Wisewood Energy)

Biomass boilers have been springing up across Haines over the past few years. The boilers generate heat by burning wood pellets made of condensed sawdust. Now the borough hopes to install a boiler that runs on larger wood chips to heat several municipal buildings. If the wood chips are produced locally that could mean savings for the borough and a new source of income for the local timber industry.

A few years ago, Chilkoot Indian Association or CIA started exploring alternative heat sources to avoid high oil prices. In 2012, CIA installed a biomass boiler for a subdivision it manages. A year later, another biomass boiler was installed for its admin building.

Harriet Brouillette is the tribal administrator for CIA. She said heating with pellets is definitely cheaper, but it doesn’t solve the issues of sustainability and fuel security.

“We are happy with the pellet system, but we’re reliant on shipping pellets from the lower 48. How do you create a sustainable community if you’re having to import pellets? It doesn’t make sense,” Brouillette said.

CIA received a grant to see if wood pellet production would be conceivable in Haines. Brouillette said that unfortunately, it doesn’t look realistic.

What we found is that because we’re in a rainforest it would end up costing us a lot of money to dry the product out before we could use it. We would have to import wood from somewhere else that was drier in order for the system to work,” Brouillette said.

There are other sources of fuel for biomass boilers. Haines State Forester Greg Palmieri is particularly keen on the prospect of producing wood chips to use as fuel.

“Developing that industry is much more feasible than designing and building a pellet plant in a small community and trying to create a market for it,” Palmieri said.

He says chips produced in Haines could be used by a new biomass boiler that the borough is installing to heat the school, public pool, library and administration building.

In August, 65% of the design for the new chip boiler was completed by Wisewood Energy out of Portland, Oregon. Since then, public facilities director Brad Ryan has approached the Haines Economic Development Corporation about researching the potential for using local timber to fuel the new boiler.

A map of the site for the proposed wood chip boiler.
(Photo from Wisewood Energy)

Some municipalities have already begun using local wood chips to fuel their boilers. The City of Craig on Prince of Wales Island installed a wood-chip boiler, which heats two schools and the community’s aquatic center. The chips come from Viking Lumber, just six miles away.  

However, there is some skepticism about whether wood in Haines is suitable for fuel. Palmieri said it is unfounded.

“The concern I think that a lot of people have that the moisture content of Sitka Spruce and Western Hemlock is high and therefore unusable. This is in fact incorrect. Off the stump, the estimates fall within the design of the boiler that’s being installed,” Palmieri said.

Achieving the optimal moisture content is still challenging though.

The City of Craig had to install a wood dryer in order to use the chips produced by Viking Lumber.

And there are some drawbacks to using chips. The emissions from chips are slightly higher than pellets, and chips require larger storage areas. Doug Olerud of Olerud’s Market installed a pellet fired boiler for his shop in 2014. He said he considered a chip boiler, but there simply wasn’t enough space.

“Obviously, we would love to get something locally sourced,” Olerud said. “On our pellets coming in, we pay more to ship them from Seattle to Haines than we pay for the pellets. So it’s doubling the price of our pellets just for the shipping. But it would depend on the chips, how big of a storage facility we would need. I think right now based on the size of the chip boilers that I’ve seen, we don’t have space in our building right now.”

As for CIA, Brouillette said that they may have the space to build a wood chip heating system, but it will take more research to determine if it’s worth it to make the switch.

The Haines Borough is still figuring out how to make the most of local timber for a fuel source. In 2016, the borough received grant funding to purchase a wood chipper. If the chipper is purchased, the borough is considering leasing it to a local operator to help produce wood chips for its new boiler. 

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that the Haines Borough purchased a wood chipper to produce fuel for its new boiler. The assembly authorized the borough manager to purchase a wood chipper from Vermeer Northwest, however, the purchase was delayed and received an extension.