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McNeil's Waste Wood Yard Hours of Operation

During the 1970s, the rising demand for electricity and the retirement of some existing power sources prompted BED to look for ways to provide additional power to meet the city's growing need for electricity.

BED conducted studies to find a fuel source that would be locally available, reliable, cost-effective, non-polluting and publicly acceptable. Wood scored high on all counts. Using wood fuel as a generation source would put money back into the Vermont economy, improve the condition of our forests and provide jobs for Vermonters. That's how the Joseph C. McNeil Generating Station came to be. Construction of the McNeil Generating Station required Burlington voter approval. The bond issue went before the voters in 1978 to request authorization to finance construction. It passed with a favorable vote of 71%.

A Certificate of Public Good was approved by the Vermont Public Service Board on September 14, 1981. This certificate ensures the McNeil Station operates in a manner that will protect the health, safety and welfare of the general public and maintain the quality of the natural environment. The final cost of constructing the McNeil Station was $67 million ($13 million under budget), and the unit was completed ahead of schedule.

The McNeil Station is jointly owned by BED (50%), Central Vermont Public Service (20%), Vermont Public Power Supply Authority (19%) and Green Mountain Power (11%).

Seventy percent of the wood chips that fuel the McNeil Station are called whole-tree chips and come from low quality trees and harvest residues. The trees, a majority of which are on privately owned woodlands, are cut and chipped in the forest. The chips are then transported by trailer truck to the Station or to a railcar loading site in Swanton, Vermont.

The remaining portion of McNeil's wood requirements are met by purchasing residues such as sawdust, chips and bark from local sawmills and by using processed urban wood waste. Wood waste is a viable fuel as long as it is free from contaminants. This practice significantly reduces the volume of wood waste going into the regional landfill.

Based on figures published by the U.S. Forest Service, half of Vermont's forest inventory is wood that has no potential for manufacturing quality products such as woodenware or furniture. This unusable wood consists largely of poorly formed trees and treetops left behind after trees have been conventionally harvested as sawlogs or pulpwood. The amount of wood available for whole-tree chip harvesting has been conservatively estimated at one million green tons per year in Northern Vermont alone. This is twice the amount required to operate the McNeil Station at an estimated 85% load factor.

No. Clearcutting of woodlands is limited to areas that need to establish a new crop of trees. It may also be used in some instances to improve wildlife habitat. In these cases, the size of the area cleared is limited to a maximum of 25 acres. Land clearing practices are used in cases where the land is converted to other uses such as development, agriculture or tree planting.

One of BED's foresters monitors each harvest operation to see that wood is harvested properly. The Station's chip suppliers are required to conduct their harvesting activities in accordance with strict standards to protect the environment.

Wood chip costs usually depend on such factors as the distance from the point of delivery, the type of material (such as bark, sawmill residue or whole-tree chips), demand by other markets and how the wood fuel is transported. Chips delivered directly to the Station by truck are less expensive than those delivered to our Swanton site and shipped by railcar to the McNeil Station. The range of prices is typically between $18 to $30 per ton delivered.

The Station has a wood procurement and storage plan that provides control of our wood on site. The wood chip piles are limited in size and are monitored to ensure they do not reach the early stages of decomposition. The wood fuel is consumed on a first-in, first-out basis to control the age of the material.

The Burlington Electric Commission accepted a proposal from Vermont Gas Systems in 1989 to supply gas to the McNeil Generating Station on an interruptible basis between May and November of each year. In October 1989, the capability to burn natural gas was added to the McNeil Station.

While wood remains the plant's primary fuel, the addition of gas allows McNeil to operate more frequently, making it more economical. The gas installation was completed by McNeil personnel on schedule and $200,000 under budget. McNeil employees received a tremendous amount of training by doing the installation. Over 2,000 feet of piping was purchased, installed, supported, welded, cleaned and tested, and 4 1/2 miles of wiring was installed and inspected. The final outcome was a well-operating system: plant efficiency at full load on gas is 15% better than when firing wood. The Station can also use fuel oil or any combination of wood, gas or oil for fuel.

The amount of wood used depends on the operating conditions of the plant. To run McNeil at full load, approximately 76 tons of whole-tree chips are consumed per hour. That amounts to about 30 cords per hour (there are about 2.5 tons of chips per cord of green wood). When the plant is operating at full load on gas, it uses 550,000 cubic feet of gas per hour.

At full load, the plant can generate 50 megawatts (MW) of electricity. This is enough power to run 500,000 100-watt light bulbs or nearly enough electricity for Burlington—Vermont's largest city. By comparison, the McNeil Station is only one-tenth the size of the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station, which generates 528 megawatts.

The McNeil Station is equipped with a series of air quality control devices that limit the particulate stack emissions to one-tenth the level allowed by Vermont State regulation. McNeil's emissions are one one-hundredth of the allowable Federal level. The only visible emission from the plant is water vapor during the cooler months of the year.

There are four wells located approximately 4,000 feet north of the Station. The output of any one well is enough to replace water losses at the plant. Most water losses occur in the cooling tower by evaporation.

Water removed from the McNeil Station is monitored for pH, temperature, flow and metals. It is treated to maintain a balanced pH, allowed to cool to a temperature that will not adversely affect aquatic life and then pumped to the Winooski River (located about 1,000 feet east of the plant). Except for dissolved mineral salts, the regulated discharge of waste water going to the Winooski River is comparable in quality to the water drawn from Station wells.

Wood ash, the end-product of burning chips, is temporarily placed on site in a landing area. BED works with a private contractor who reclaims the ash, mixes it with limestone and markets it as a soil conditioner and as a base for building roads. Wood ash acts in much the same way lime does to sweeten acidic soils. Other mineral nutrients present in wood ash improve plant growth.

There are 40 people employed at the McNeil Generating Station. The demands of running the Station 24 hours a day are fully met by a maintenance crew, equipment operators, fuel handlers, foresters and administrative and engineering support personnel. A minimum staff of four is needed to operate the power-producing facility at any given time. A shift supervisor oversees the operation from the central control room; a roving station operator performs all local operating functions; an auxiliary operator is primarily responsible for ash handling, and yard workers take care of receiving, unloading, storing and reclaiming all wood fuel.

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