Oh No, The Rainbows…

June 9, 2011 in Montana

by lizard

Our first summer in Missoula was quite a summer, though I didn’t have the full context at the time (2000). The fires that year were terrible, there was a riot we only found out about the following week reading the Indy, and the hippie ratio was unusually high (pun, like, uh, totally intended).

UM’s Proposed Biomass Plant: Questions and Concerns

June 9, 2011 in Energy, Environment, Missoula, University of Montana

Guest post by Matthew Koehler, Ian Lange and John Snively (promoted by JC)

Last fall news broke that the University of Montana was planning to construct a $16 million wood-burning biomass plant on campus next to the Aber Hall dormitory. UM officials claimed the biomass plant would save UM $1 million annually and protect Missoula’s air quality by reducing emissions over the existing natural gas heating system.

As interested citizens, we attended the university’s biomass “poster presentation” last December, which, unfortunately, raised more serious questions than it answered. So we continued to ask questions and research the proposal. In March, we even conducted an “open records” search of UM’s biomass project file, pouring over hundreds of documents and emails between UM officials and representatives of Nexterra, a Canadian biomass boiler manufacturer, and McKinstry, a Seattle energy services company. Suffice to say, our records search turned up even more troubling questions, especially related to costs, maintenance and emissions.