Borough sets aside trees to fuel school boiler

PALMER — So you want to heat your high school with wood; where are you going to get the wood?

Turns out the folks behind the wood-fired boiler at Su Valley Jr./Sr. High School have that covered. You convince the Mat-Su Borough to set aside some forest land.

Specifically, the borough set aside its Parks Highway and its Rabideux Creek Natural Resources Management units. The former is 10,280 acres with 1,534 suitable for logging and the latter is 4,500 acres with 1.584 log-able acres.

“Our community can get comparable heat energy values of wood into the school’s furnace for quite a bit less than the cost of diesel or fuel oil,” said Arthur Mannix, one of the project’s organizers.

The project has already secured $830,000 in grants. The idea is to harvest the wood locally, creating jobs both to log the trees and to cut them into half-cord pallets to be delivered to the school. The borough would net something like $7,500 per year from the logging contractor. Su Valley would set up a sustainable harvest schedule, teaching kids at the school about forest management along the way.

Dave Krompacky, a local logger, said he graduated from Su Valley in a class of 13 and there are few job opportunities in the area.

“There’s two of us left in Talkketna, the rest have moved on,” he said of his graduating class.

Setting up the boiler and the accompanying logging is a step in the right direction.

“We just need to set this land aside for them and let them go,” Krompacky said.

“The environmental aspect of using local wood and hiring local people to heat the school is very important,” said Cary Birdsall, chair of the Talkeetna Community Council. “This is also going to give kids another reason to look at the Susitna Valley as a place to stay, to come back to and have a job.”

The Mat-Su Borough Assembly signed off on creating the forest without any debate, only words of encouragement.

“It’s a very good thing for the north Valley,” said assemblyman Vern Halter, who represents the area. “We’re very proud of this project. I always have been.”

He added that his understanding is that issues with a written agreement with the school district had been resolved. Or at least nearly resolved, judging by what superintendent Deena Paramo told him.

“The new draft — she likes how it looks and reads,” Halter said. “Hopefully, we’ll get that signed.”

Assemblyman Jim Colver congratulated Mannix.

“I especially want to recognize Mr. Mannix for never giving up, never quitting on this project. The leadership that you’ve shown has been very commendable,” he said.

Borough Manager John Moosey told the assembly he’d work to get the project out for bids.

“We will move diligently on this,” Moosey said. “We want to make sure we do it right and correctly.”

Colver urged speed.

“Let’s get on with this,” he said. “We are going to save a lot of taxpayer dollars and we’re going to learn how to do this even better. They do this in Tok and Delta. It’s not rocket science.”

Contact reporter Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.