City receives $65,000 biomass grant

SANDPOINT — The city may have to curtail plans for a biomass burner because of a shortage of grant money available for the work.

Sandpoint was named, along with Bonners Ferry, in the latest rounds of stimulus-funded grant money for Idaho communities.

In the award, announced Monday by the Office of Energy Resources, Bonners Ferry will receive $74,620 for a methane reduction project at its sewer plant and Sandpoint is in line to receive $65,000 for its biomass burner project.

The award is much less than Sandpoint officials applied for, but it tops off the $250,000 that the city already received for the project in December.

Jeremy Grimm, Sandpoint city planner, said he doesn’t know yet if the latest award is earmarked for a specific aspect of the biomass project, but he hopes that despite fewer dollars, the city can still make the project work.

“It’s our intention to build it,” Grimm said.

The first step, he said, is to negotiate with the state agency on what can be accomplished with the funding.

“We have to come up with a firm understanding of what we can build with the money available,” Grimm said.

One alternative is to seek a less expensive boiler system, he said.

Paul Kjellander, administrator of the Office of Energy Resources, said his agency wants to see the completion of the Sandpoint project, which includes building an energy grid to provide city-owned buildings as well as private businesses a cheaper power source.

The agency could tap additional funding sources if more money is required, Kjellander said.

“There may be more money to look at that project,” he said. “We’re down to the point of, ‘What amount do you need to make that work?’”

Sandpoint was awarded a $250,000 grant in December for part of the biomass project, and officials hoped to receive another $250,000  to fund the $500,000 project that turns wood waste into heat at the city’s industrial park.

The city shop, Lead-Lock building and the Bonner Business Center would take advantage of the new energy source, which would save the city approximately $11,194 in annual energy bills, Grimm said. In addition, an energy grid at the site could provide energy to nearby private businesses.

The project would use wood waste including slash and logging debris from land-clearing operations, and construction waste destined for landfills, and turn it into hog fuel, a combustible wood product that would be used to make energy.

The city had hoped to start this spring installing the burner, and hooking three city-owned buildings to the energy source.

The Bonners Ferry project, which entails installing aeration equipment at its sewer plant, will cost approximately $80,000, and reduce the amount of methane gas produced at the plant, city administrator Stephen Boorman, said.

Adding oxygen to wastewater results in a release of carbon dioxide instead of methane gas, Boorman said.

Despite being a greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide is more desirable than methane, he said. 

“Methane is 23 times more potent as a greenhouse gas,” he said.

 Bonners Ferry will use $71,000 of the grant money to purchase the aerators, he said.

The city will install them, but must pay for electrical work associated with the project.

“Our out of pocket expense will be about $6,000,” he said.

The work should be completed this summer.