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April 17, 2010

Some are used to Cadillac biomass plant

BY ART BUKOWSKI

CADILLAC -- The way Rob VandeWater sees it, things could be worse.

VandeWater lives a few hundred yards from the Cadillac Renewable Energy plant, a large, wood-burning power facility similar to a plant proposed for Traverse City.

He's lived there six years, and it hasn't always been a picnic. Residue from the plant coats his vehicles and home, he said, and the continuous drone of bulldozers as they scale a mountainous pile of wood chips can be troublesome.

But VandeWater, like many others in his Wexford County neighborhood, learned to ignore the plant.

"I kind of deal with it," he said. "It's not too bad."

Across the street and a few doors down, Stanley Bentley, 68, stood in his doorway and grinned when asked about the plant. It doesn't bother him much, he said, though it certainly disturbs some.

"I'm going to tell you a little secret," he said. "Everybody likes electricity, but nobody wants one of those plants close to their house. That's kind of tough to do."

Plant opened in 1993

Traverse City Light & Power's board on Tuesday could vote to build a 10-megawatt wood-burning plant, a likely scenario considering the public utility's recent promotion of biomass over other renewable energy options.

About 10 truckloads of wood per day would roll into the proposed plant, officials said, and it would consume about 100,000 tons of wood per year. The plant likely would be built on a seven-acre site off Parsons Road, though it would take several years of planning, permitting and construction before it's operational.

Folks in Cadillac have lived with a biomass facility for nearly two decades. The plant there, more than three times the size of the one proposed by Light & Power, went online in July 1993.

The Cadillac plant staffs about 20 full-time employees. The 38-megawatt facility burned through about 325,000 tons of wood last year and is located in a large industrial park on the city's northwest edge.

Trucks from across northern Michigan roll into the plant all day long. Entire tractor trailers filled with wood chips are lifted like toys on two huge hydraulic lifts and emptied, and their loads fire the plant or contribute to a sprawling pile of reserve chips.

Plant officials refused to let a Record-Eagle reporter and photographer tour the plant, citing concerns about public sensitivity to biomass. The plant is owned by New Jersey-based Olympus Power and operated by Texas-based Delta Power Services.

The plant generates about $800,000 a year in tax revenue for Cadillac, roughly 5 percent of the city's general fund budget. It operates without tax abatements, city officials said.

Cadillac Mayor Bill Barnett said he used to receive noise or other complaints about the plant, and citizens were up in arms about 10 years ago when the facility considered adding tires to the wood-burning mix.

The tire plan was nixed, and Barnett said residents seem largely indifferent to the plant these days.

"It's a fact of life here for us," he said.

'We all grow used to it'

Nearby residents offer varying viewpoints about its impact on their lives. The dozens of trucks that feed the plant each day are routed well away from residential neighborhoods, though plant noise and odors bother some.

Barbara Donovan, 42, has lived less than a mile from the plant for about five years. It doesn't disturb her, she said.

"You get kind of used to it," she said. "It can be a little loud here and there, banging and clanging."

Donovan's neighbor, Robyn Swanberg, 28, echoed her thoughts.

"It's really not that bad ... we all grow used to it, for sure," she said. "And you can't even smell it."

Complaints are more frequent along Mary Street, a short stretch a few hundred yards south of the plant. Residents there deal with more intense noise and odors.

Craig Walworth's home is among the closest to the plant. He walked up to his Jeep -- a vehicle he cleaned the day before -- and dragged his finger through a layer of film on the hood.

"Every morning, you have that to look forward to," he said. "I clean my screens three times a year during the summer because they clog up."

Walworth, who's lived there for 26 years, was among several residents who complained about the plant's intermittent release of steam, a sound akin to "a jet airplane taking off from your backyard."

Coralie and Julius Nash moved into a home on Mary Street 31 years ago, well before the plant was built.

They complained of the plant's "rotten apple" smell, as well as dust and noise.

"It's a mess ... If we could, we would have sold (our house) a long time ago," Coralie, 61, said.

But some residents along Mary Street don't seem overly concerned, despite the plant's proximity.

Tina Bertog and Tom Hankins agreed that the steam release is loud. But it doesn't happen often enough to irk them, the two-year Mary Street residents said, and odors rarely are a problem.

"Only when they do pine chips, and it kind of smells like pine, which isn't bad," Bertog said. "It's like an air freshener."

Sheila Thwaites, who has a plant view from her front door, said she isn't troubled by noise or odor.

"Sometimes there's a little smell, but it's not a bad smell," she said.

Plant manager Tim Schimke said the facility does what it can to alleviate problems.

"We definitely do listen to our neighbors and address the concerns that they have to the best of our abilities," he said.

Schimke declined further comment.

Sustainable?

Much of the angst over Light & Power's plans revolve around concerns that a local biomass plant -- combined with the Cadillac plant and other proposed or existing wood-burning power facilities across the state -- would decimate forests.

Light & Power called in government and academic sorts to attest to biomass sustainability, but a local environmental group and others suggest burning wood for power is far from ecologically sound.

Greg Reisig, board chairman of the Northern Michigan Environmental Action Council, is concerned that the plant's need for fuel easily could lead to unchecked wood harvests.

"Once those boilers turn on, they're going to be looking for supply, and it will be very difficult -- if not impossible -- to control the standards out in the field," Reisig said. "They give the impression that they can create (sustainable) standards and enforce those standards, but I don't believe they can."

But loggers who feed the Cadillac plant contend their shipments are almost entirely composed of scrap wood that would otherwise go to waste.

Terry Frever, owner of Mid Michigan Logging in Lake City, sends three or four truckloads of chips to the Cadillac plant each day.

Frever gets $18 dollars a ton for the material, he said, significantly less than he'd get for hardwood or pulpwood. But the chips he sells are from tree tops, branches and other scraps, material he said would be left to rot on the forest floor if he didn't have a place to sell it.

Frever believes there's room -- if not a need -- for more wood-burning plants. He contends plenty of wood across the state goes to waste in forests.

"Its like throwing $100 bills into the fire," he said.

Frever contends fears are overblown of widespread clear cuts to feed biomass plants.

"We've got so much stuff around that needs to be thinned out, not clear cut," he said. "I get pissed off at clear cuts myself."

And Frever contends having an outlet for chipped scraps leads to more business. Customers like when a woodlot is neat and tidy after logging, he said.

"It cleans up the woods, that's what it does," he said. "There's not a lot of profit in it, but the whole deal is when you clean it up, people look at it and say 'do our piece' ... you get more jobs."

Jason Lutke of Manton-based Lutke Forest Products sends up to 50 truckloads per week to the Cadillac plant and another wood-burning biomass facility in McBain.

"It's a very beneficial thing," he said. "We do a lot of the biomass."

Like Frever, Lutke said there's plenty of room for more another biomass facility.

"The wood's growing faster than we can cut it most of the time, if it's managed properly," he said.

If you go

Traverse City Light & Power meeting

5:30 p.m. Tuesday

City Commission Chambers inside the Governmental Center

400 Boardman Ave.

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