Governor: Biomass project a 'triple win'

"There are a lot of people who have felt that I have been an outlaw for a long time," said Governor Dr. John Kitzhaber after being presented with an Outlaw hat and T-shirt and being proclaimed an official Sisters Outlaw by Sisters schools superintendent Jim Golden.

The governor was in town Monday to preside over the christening of the new Sisters High School biomass boiler. Firing up the boiler for this celebration was the culmination of a four-year effort championed by Benny Benson, president of Energyneering Systems, Inc. (ESI), and Leland Bliss, director of operations for Sisters School District, among others.

Burning 350 tons of wood pellets a year, the biomass boiler is expected to save the district between $35,000 and $65,000 per year, quickly paying back the district's $350,000 investment.

Golden pointed out that Kitzhaber's last visit to the Sisters schools was in 1997 when he helped celebrate a classroom raising project. Four elementary classrooms were built at no cost to taxpayers, all with the help of locally donated materials and labor.

The biomass boiler project began with a similar local, grassroots impulse to make something happen.

"In 2009 my wife sat on a committee that was brainstorming on how to react to the schools' budget cut," Benson recalled. "I sat in on some of those meetings. Energyneering Solutions, Inc. proposed a public-private project. What can we do for our local community? I offered to donate ESI services; no cost, no risk - if it works, it is a donation from ESI to the Sisters School District. We wanted to make this a local project using local business's and local labor."

That's the kind of project Kitzhaber said he likes to see.

"This innovative project began as an idea at a public meeting and grew into a real partnership in Central Oregon," said Kitzhaber. "It is a true triple-bottom-line win. It is going to create jobs at a time we desperately need them. It is going to maintain the health of the surrounding forests. It is going to save the school $35,000 to $65,000 per year that can be reinvested right back into the classroom.

"It is also an example of Oregon companies supplying Oregon companies," he continued. "You've got Sisters' own ESI Systems that built the boiler. You've got Pacific Pellet that has a new fuel pellet that is made from western juniper and ponderosa pine, and you've got Malheur Lumber Company (Ochoco Lumber) that is now manufacturing a pine pellet that is created from the residual from forest health treatments. This means that the job creation and the dollars produced in this project are going to ripple even further through your community, and also create long-term jobs in energy efficiency."

The governor spoke of traveling all over the state in the last several months trying to help get Oregon's private sector economy moving again.

"Biomass has the potential to be a real job creator for rural Oregon - just a sweet spot. You have forest health, reducing carbon footprint, and energy generation all coming together," said Kitzhaber. "We all know that the housing market is not going to pull us out of this recession because of the big inventory of vacant housing. But with this kind of energy and retrofits for existing buildings (results) could be huge."

It's all about putting people back to work.

"The Sisters High School biomass boiler and Cool School programs are part of that effort. They are also part of a much broader initiative to try to retrofit the huge inventory of inefficient industrial and commercial buildings throughout the state of Oregon," said Kitzhaber.

"We know that for every million dollars we spend on upgrading these building we can create as many as 15 family-wage jobs.

If we use local sources of material we create even a larger ripple effect.

That's why I am absolutely confident that we can put our state back to work.

That we can create and rebuild the Oregon economy that is globally competitively, that is strong, that produces family wages jobs, and that drives our per capita income back up above the national average in every region of the state of Oregon, rural and urban alike."

Beyond the economic benefits of the boiler project, Benson sees lasting educational value.

"This has a phenomenal educational opportunity. We have a live lab in our back yard," he said. "What can this do for the students? For the sciences, the study of the biology of biomass, from sequestration through emissions. Then economics, did it make sense from a capital side? Is this really a savings or not a savings? It gives you some international perspective. What is the fossil fuel market doing and how the global market as a natural resource can support that from a biomass perspective."

And as of Monday afternoon, that "live lab" was up and running.