BERLIN CITY COUNCIL
WORK SESSION
Monday, October 29, 2007 – 6:30pm
Executive Council Chambers of City Hall
Mayor & Council Present |
Staff Present |
Others |
Mayor Danderson |
Richard Poulin |
Pat MacQueen |
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Councilor Grenier |
Councilor Bigelow |
Andre Caron |
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Dick Lafleur |
Diana Nelson |
Ernie Allain |
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Councilor Cusson |
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Minutes
Danderson brought the meeting to order at 6:30 pm.
Clean Power Development
Mel Liston of Clean Power Development introduced his partners Peter Bloomfield and Alex Driessen. They were involved in Timco bio-mass plant in Barnstead and involved in the West Hopkinton project. titleMr. Liston started Pinetree Power and built plants in Bethlehem and Tamworth. They have stayed in the background for last 20 years.
Peter Bloomfield owns Concord Steam Corporation in Concord which heats downtown buildings and the hospital in Concord. He is also a consulting engineer and has consulted for many power mills.
Alex Driessen is the owner of Calex Environmental and has done a lot of chemical process engineering and a lot of work with State DES.
Mr. Liston started coming to Berlin around September of last year. He said that CPD had what it takes to operate and develop a bio-mass plant. They have looked at many sites in Berlin and have settled on a location next to the Berlin WWTP for a wrap around type of plant.
He showed a picture of what the plant would like from across the river. He said most plants tend to be industrial looking. Theirs will look like a successful farm operation. They are working on four or five projects in the State. He reviewed the operation and how it would work and look. It would have a relatively short stack of 100' or less. Stacks would most likely be fiberglass. They will put a greenhouse at the first plant they build. They are looking into algae that can be converted to bio-diesel. The plants generate a significant amount of waste heat. CPD is interested in having a close relationship with the community college and would train students in operating a windmill.
Their plant could have one or two turbines and will have two boilers so they can turn it down as necessary. It will be around 35 Megawatts of power output.
Councilor Cusson asked about transmission lines. These would be existing and are behind the plant. Mayor Danderson clarified that the power lines would not be like the pictures shown of Schiller station. This is a smaller plant. They don't want to get up against a situation where they can't afford the fiber.
There will also be a cooling tower. Councilors asked about discharge into the river. There won't be any uptake or discharge to the river.
Councilor Bigelow asked if the plant would burn anything but wood. Mr. Liston said that perhaps landfill gas if the District is willing to do that. They will not burn construction and demolition waste or turkey manure. Perhaps shredded pallets but clean wood-fired. Every boiler is most efficient for a specific fuel.
Councilor Nelson inquired about the number of employees. Mel said around 32 in the plant and 200-250 people in the forest.
Councilor Boucher asked about the land and where the plant would go. Mr. Liston said the best place to build in Berlin is at this location because of the many synergies which are possible there.
He talked about synergies. They may be going to work toward developing bio-diesel. A lot of CO2 comes out of stacks. Plants like algae take this up CO2.
Mr. Liston said around 50 tractor trailer loads per day on a five day per week schedule would service the plant. There will be no chipping on site. They haven't considered bringing it in by rail. The plant will take about $14M per year in woodchips. Peter Bloomfield said that the woodchips freeze in place in a RR car.
The Landfill could provide methane gas in exchange for cash. CPD will be building a boiler anyway so it will be cheaper for the District to sell the gas to CPD than deal with it themselves. They have also shown the city a way to deal with landfill's leachate. Obviously the property taxes will be going to the city. They could provide hot water and steam to the Gorham mill to replace oil they are currently buying. This would also have the effect of reducing greenhouse gases from their plant.
CPD could use WWTP effluent of around 600gpm. That water then is evaporated off their cooling tower. They could also heat the WWTP building with hot water and could also provide cheaper electricity to the plant. They could possibly provide the standby or peak power for the plant with standby diesel generators. These synergies really aren't available at other locations in Berlin.
Councilor Cusson asked about noise? Mr. Liston said that they will be the quietest plant anyone has seen. The building itself will be acoustically designed. They will have airport grade paving which will cut down on truck noise. The plant itself will be very quiet.
Their other earlier plants were all around 15Megawatts or about half the size of this.
Councilor Bigelow asked about whether he looked at the mill site. Mr. Liston said he had and can see more than one egg in Berlin's basket. They are going to build a plant but can't talk about certain things such as transmission which won't be a problem for them. Boilers are specified for certain burns. They looked at black liquor boiler, and it was way too large and couldn't be turned down and would have to be in the 75-80 Meg range. It would also be fluidized beds with noisy fans. It is an existing building with a tall stack. It would be hard to pretty up. They decided not to go forward with the black liquor boiler. They also want to meet the Mass. Renewable Energy Credits (REC's) which pay the most.
Councilor Bigelow asked about fuel efficiency. Peter Bloomfield said it would be in the neighborhood of 70-72% efficiency. Thermal efficiency will be 23-24% on the overall plant. This could be improved if waste heat is re-captured.
Councilor Cusson asked about fog creation. Mr. Liston said the stack is low temp and the moisture is taken out of stack. There will be vapor from the cooling towers. Their moisture will be recovered and re-used.
Councilor Boucher inquired about their plans in other communities. Mr. Liston said their intention is to build out the capability of NH. They have a number of forestry studies going on throughout the state. Most of the harvesting for a plant will be in 35 mile radius of the plant.
Councilor Cusson asked about solids in the atmosphere? Mr. Driessen said that the volume here will be much lower than anything that used to run out here. Fly ash could be trucked away on a ratio of less than 1:50. Mr. Bloomfield said that pollution control starts in the boiler. Most of the ash will come out of the boiler and go through an electro-static precipitator. To meet the REC's it has to be about 10 times cleaner than wood plants put in twenty years ago. All creosotes and stuff like you have in your chimney will not be there because they will be completely burned.
The life of the plant could be quite long if it is maintained.
There was a discussion of the time it would take which could drag on for quite a while. Mr. Liston said that they are talking about two and half to three years out.
There was discussion of other projects in the queue. They are the first one in Berlin and hope to be the last standing.
Councilor Boucher asked about employee training. Mr. Liston said the Plant Mgr would be in the $100-120k.. range. Other managers will be paid well in the $45-75k range. Most employees are well qualified.
He said he first came up to Berlin in September of 2006. When they realized they couldn't do business with NADC, they started looking elsewhere. They would take great satisfaction in being the company that actually does build a plant in Berlin. He has been all over this town looking for sites. He didn't realize what they had until they actually ended up at the WWTP.
Mr. Liston reviewed the layout of plant and the fact that they would have to build a road to it. They are not looking for any infrastructure from Berlin other than the interest in the WWTP land. There is also the potential to sell hot water to downtown. There is that potential because of downtown densities.
Peter Bloomfield said the existing transmission line is 115k and is rated to handle in the neighborhood of 100Meg of power.
Councilor Grenier credited the Mayor for keeping multiple players in the process.
Councilor Bigelow asked about financing. Mel said you don't finance until you have all your permits. They may have one company behind all their projects as this is the hottest industry in the world right now. It has to make economic sense. Everything is site specific and once they have it, they will go after it aggressively. The cost of construction is $85-100M.
The option agreement will be taken up by the Council at its regular meetings on the 5th of November and public hearing and final reading on the 19th of November.
Motion to Accept a Donation of Property Adjacent to the Library
Councilors Cusson and Bigelow have met with the Library Trustees and said they felt the building should come down and the city should accept the property as an investment for the future for the library. The building could come down now or later and could be made into a court area for the library. Andre Caron said he would see what could be done to get the building down. Councilor Lafleur said the Trustees at the library agree it would be good to have. It is a very small property. Councilor Bigelow said that the caveat is for the sole and exclusive use of the Library. There was discussion about the need for a resolution to accept the property.
On motion, the Council voted unanimously in straw poll to accept the property being offered to the City by Barry Kelley.
Motion to Sell 738 Second Avenue
Andre Caron said we tax deeded the property 3 years ago and have waited 3 years because the property is intestate. We have approx $12k in costs and have about $4k in taxes so we have about $16k into it. We can bring the motion next week. He recommends that the property should be merged if a neighbor gets it.
Councilor Cusson asked about Phase II of Green Street and the need to re-acquire if that goes through. Andre said that is a good point. Andre suggested leasing to the abutter with the highest price until we know we are in a position to sell. Councilor Bigelow questioned whether the liability was worth what we would get in a lease. Andre will look at this more.
4. Other
Jericho Park Development
Trails Bureau Chief, Chris Gamache talked about the progress at the State Park. As of today, the Trails Bureau has completed 22 new miles for 37 miles of trail to date. It is currently a six to seven hour event to ride the park or basically an all day event. They will start again in May of next year to reach 50 miles by July 4 of next year. Most construction was done by bureau staff. They moved the whole staff up here on the first of August. The ATV club accounted for almost 400 hours of additional construction. We are low on mileage but high on quality. Good trails and they are holding up well. People are saying that these are some of the best trails they have ridden on anywhere in the country. Chris guesses that approximately half the riders are from out of state. There will be counters next year for
the trails. The new maps on the web site will start highlighting the Success trails also.
They are continuing to research how to link Success with the Park, but it takes time to accomplish this. There are about 4-5 landowners who they are dealing with. They will be developing a media plan over the winter. They have been asked to participate in a Mahoosic Range tourism guide.
They are pleased with what they have accomplished so far. Next year they hope to have a larger workforce. There is a draft for an RFP for the campground development. They are looking for someone to build and operate it for say 20 years. This gives the incentive for them to keep as a top notch facility. All Dillon's roads should be useable in the future by simply connecting them.
Councilor Lafleur asked about any moose incidents. meChris said there were none. He said they will need to look at the mix of trails and hunting. Mayor Danderson said he did not see many hunters and those that there were scoping the area. He said there are few issues between hunters and state lands across the state.
This winter they hope to produce a new brochure which will center on Jericho State Park. People stay all around us and the local hoteliers and campgrounds need to participate in promoting it as well.
Mayor Danderson said he is getting feedback on how great the trails are. He gave cudos to the Trails Bureau. He said we don't have the most, but we have the best. So far the fine filter thing has worked fairly well in terms of reviewing new trails. Chris said there are no major hang ups with that at this time. Bob said that is where high end development will go in the future.
Hillside Ave. RR Crossing
Ernie Allain pointed out that Hillside is closed for new rail being brought up to grade. They were going to finish next year, but it will be completed tonight and finally paved by Wednesday. Ernie wanted to pave from Mannering to the north side of the Dead River Bridge. He asked for Council approval to take the estimated $9,200 from segregated funds for this work.
On motion, the Council voted unanimously to authorize proceeding with the work and they will then appropriate the money at the next meeting from a place to be determined.
There being no other business, on unanimous vote, the meeting adjourned at 8:30pm.
Respectfully Submitted,
Patrick MacQueen
City Manager
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