A coalition of environmental activists, including 350vt.org, the Conservation Law Foundation, Standing Trees and STOP VT Biomass, have rallied to block the project, turning it into a referendum on biomass energy and Burlington’s climate leadership.

“If Vermont wants to be claiming that we’re environmental champions, or that they are protecting our future in the face of climate change, then they should not be going through with this expansion,” said Ashley Winter, a UVM environmental studies student who joined about 35 students to protest the project in front of city hall on November 12.
Winter and others argue the project would lock in — for years to come — the existing system of burning wood chips, mostly from trees chopped down during logging jobs in Vermont and New York forests. They worry this would prevent the hospital and the Burlington Electric Department from pursuing truly green energy sources, such as wind, solar and geothermal.

“We should not be investing any further in a plant that has been there for 40 years and is going to sit there for another 40 years,” Winter said.

Project supporters counter that McNeil purchases wood chips from well-managed forests and helps keep those forests healthy so they can grow back over time. They also note that the plant wouldn't burn more wood to generate the steam needed to heat the hospital. Instead, the project would cap wood use at current levels, allowing the plant to generate slightly less electricity.

Springer has estimated that the project would improve the efficiency of the plant by 10 percent. That’s largely by using some of the waste heat from the stack exhaust to reheat the water that returns from the hospital and possibly other buildings that participate.
Springer declined to predict how Monday's vote will go, but he said a number of commitments his department is making to reduce emissions over time should address concerns.

“We are incredibly open to ideas for improvement,” Springer said. “If there are ideas for new technologies, new fuel resources that are even better environmentally, those are all things we have said we want to continue to explore.”

One way to improve the efficiency of the plant would be to use chip-drying technology, which could help green chips burn more cleanly. McNeil burns about 74 tons of wood chips per hour.

The seven-page resolution up for a vote on Monday also calls on the electric department to explore lower emission fuel sources and to come up with a plan to reduce emissions by 25 percent in five years and 50 percent in 10 years. The department would also agree to annual audits of its forestry practices, which the department says is sustainable but others have noted allow clear-cutting.

Climate scientists have told the city that burning whole trees that could absorb and store carbon cannot be considered a climate solution, even though carbon accounting rules allow it to be called carbon neutral. Critics think the practice is wildly misleading.



The resolution, noting the city’s declaration that climate change is an “existential crisis requiring dramatic and quick action,” also calls on the department to conduct a third-party review of the plant’s operations.
Councilor Gene Bergman (P-Ward 2), who lives in the city's Old North End and can see McNeil from outside his home, said last month that he opposed the current version of the project.

But on Friday he said the department's commitments to emissions reductions are significant enough that he can now support it.

“I’m on board,” he said. Bergman said the binding commitment not to use more wood than the plant uses now was a significant factor in his decision.

Bergman previously opposed the project in part because he felt moving forward would lock in McNeil’s operations and emissions for years to come and prevent the hospital from exploring cleaner energy options.

“My concern continues to be that this will lock it in,” he said on Friday. “But the answer is not to simply walk away from this project.”

Springer said Monday’s decision will be a significant step for the project but not the final one. The hospital still needs to get on board.

UVM Medical Center president and chief operating officer Stephen Leffler has expressed general support for the project, as long as the council signed off on it. He also said the hospital's decision would be influenced by a new city carbon-pollution impact fee, which is on the agenda on Monday. If those are approved, then the city and Vermont Gas Systems will have to negotiate a final energy agreement laying out the terms.

The electric department would likely have to pay Burlington District Energy System, the nonprofit collaborative that would build the system, $665,000 per year to assist with the cost of converting the hospital from natural gas to steam energy.

Springer has said the incentive is not unlike giving incentives to homeowners to install a electric vehicle charger. If that deal is struck, then the project would need to get financing and permitting, including an Act 250 permit, which can be arduous.

“We have a couple of key pieces left to go,” Springer said.