Governor visits Stoltze's co-generation plant

Chuck Roady beamed as he stood at the microphone last week in front of the F.H. Stoltze Land and Lumber’s new $22 million co-generation plant.

The plant, which utilizes wood waste to heat the company’s mill, dry its wood and produce enough electricity for about 2,500 homes, was roaring behind him.

“It’s a little loud, but we at Stoltze are darn glad, because it means its working,” Roady said.

The facility has been operational since late this summer, but a grand opening on Oct. 24 drew a host of local dignitaries to view the plant in full production mode, including Gov. Steve Bullock.

Bullock spoke briefly during the ceremony, saying the challenge ahead is to maintain a steady supply of timber for mills like Stoltze, which has been in business in the valley for more than 100 years.

Roady agreed.

“If we can just figure out a way to properly manage our national forests,” Roady told the crowd. “That’s a huge problem.”

Stoltze largely relies on state and private timber, including its own, to operate its dimension lumber mill in Columbia Falls. Roady said only about 15 to 20 percent of its timber comes from federal lands, despite being surrounded by national forests.

Montana Congressman Steve Daines recently sponsored a bill, the Restoring Healthy Forests for Healthy Communities Act, which would significantly boost the timber harvest across Montana, including the Flathead National Forest. The bill passed the House, but hasn’t been taken up in the Senate.

Meanwhile, Montana Sen. Jon Tester has also sponsored a bill, the Forest Jobs and Recreation Act, that includes increased timber harvests and new wilderness designations. But that bill has yet to get a vote in the Senate. Meanwhile, the Daines bill hasn’t exactly gotten a warm reception, either.

“Jon welcomes the attention from Congress on forest management issues but prefers balanced solutions built from the ground up,” said Tester spokeswoman Andrea Helling in a recent email to the Hungry Horse News. So while lawmakers come up with ideas and bills, nothing has happened on the ground in years.

The Stoltze biomass plant could potentially be a model for mills across the region, however, as it produces clean power from a renewable resource — trees.

The project was made possible with cooperation from the U.S. Forest Service, the Montana Department of Natural Resources, Flathead Electric Cooperative, the Bonneville Power Administration and others.

Last year, the Co-op sealed a power deal that helped make the plant feasible. The Co-op’s board set a criteria that the impact from purchasing Stoltze’s power at 9 cents a kilowatt-hour could not raise members’ retail rates by more than 1 percent. The 2.5 megawatt purchase amounts to about 1 percent of the Co-op’s total load, so there is little impact to costs.

The new plant, built by Wellons Inc. out of Vancouver, Wash., embraces high technology. Water from the company’s well is purified and then made slightly alkaline to prevent corrosion. The furnace runs on waste wood, sawdust and wood chips and bark called hog fuel. The fuel is burned in a large vortex with fans circulating air from above and below the combustion chamber to maximize the efficiency.

It doesn’t just use waste from the Stoltze mill, either. Waste wood from other mills is being burned at the plant, Roady noted.

Eleven full-time skilled employees run the plant, in addition, five electricians maintenance and equipment operators are shared part-time with the mill operations.

Roady said a big thanks goes out to the Stoltze family for believing in the project and to the company’s employees.

“The (employees) are dedicated and hard working,” he said. “It came right from their heart and soul.”