Students across the state unanimously passed a resolution supporting the Haines Borough’s use of a biomass boiler to heat public buildings at an Alaska Association of Student Governments conference in Palmer earlier this month. The resolution was written by Haines High School seniors Dylan Chapell and Brennan Palmieri.
In crafting the resolution, the pair cited evidence from eight studies and reports detailing the benefits of carbon-neutral biomass as a sustainable heat source, and the cost savings such a method would incur after “transitioning from heating oil to biomass heating for the Haines school, pool, Borough Administration Building, library and vocational education building.”
They cited the 300-acre Haines State Forest as a source of woodchips that would reduce the nearly 900,000 pounds of carbon dioxide that the current oil heating system releases each year. At current oil prices, the borough would save $49, 537 a year.
“Currently 16 percent, or 48 acres, is harvested per year. Only 10 acres, or a 3 percent increase, would be needed to accommodate a biomass facility,” the resolution states.
In July, the borough assembly relinquished a $92,000 U.S. Department of Agriculture grant for a woodchipper for use in creating the biomass fuel. The assembly had discussed leasing the machine to commercial businesses to create fuel for other customers until they learned it was prohibited under the grant rules.
The borough has secured $1 million in grant funding for the boiler, with an additional $1.7 million needed for the project that would be built near the Starvin’ Marvin Garden behind the Aspen Hotel.
Chapell said he and other students plan to request support for the biomass resolution from the borough assembly.
Dori Getchell also wrote a resolution that supported removing industrial red meat in Alaska school lunches. Although the resolution was largely opposed at the beginning, after Getchell made her arguments and students discussed the merits of the position, she was able to garner additional support.
“It was split right down the middle, 17-17,” Getchell said. “It was good to see that I turned some heads.”
Getchell cited eight studies that point to industrial feed lots as contributing to climate change. She cited dangerous levels of methane emissions from cattle, the associated carbon emissions associated with maintaining industrial-sized feed lots, along with transportation and associated deforestation as reasons industrial red meat should be removed from school lunches.
She also cited $42,000 in cost savings to the San Diego School District after it reduced the amount of meat and cheese in its school lunch program.
Although the resolution failed, she said she plans to rewrite parts of it, and bring it back to the spring conference. She said the process involved has instilled a love of politics.
“I used to live in Colorado and there were not any conferences like this at all where they’re student led, where students got to present issues that were important to them and get support from the rest of the delegate student body,” Getchell said. “It’s taught me a lot. We can make a change. You just have to be invested in it and you have to go out there and do it.”