Economic Stimulus Grants To Help Southern Missouri School Districts

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USDA Forest Service Eastern Region

First posted on 09-04-2009

Missouri Department of Conservation (MDC), in cooperation with USDA Forest Service, is offering grants of almost $1 million each to public schools in select Missouri counties for six “Fuels for Schools” projects. The grants are being funded through The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA).

“Fuels for Schools will assist public schools in heavily forested areas of southern Missouri to install and operate boiler systems that use woody biomass from local public and private forest land to heat and/or cool their facilities,” explained grant administrator John Tuttle, Forestry Field Programs supervisor for the MDC. “This technology should help reduce dependence on fossil fuels, reduce energy costs for schools, create or retain local jobs and support healthy forests and the state’s forest industry.”

Tuttle noted that Missouri’s forest products industry generates more than $5 billion in economic activity each year and supports more than 30,000 jobs.

“The Fuels for Schools projects will help create a stronger market for woody material historically considered waste, such as unhealthy or small-diameter trees and wood debris left from logging,” he said. “These forest products currently have little or no commercial value so the Fuels for Schools projects can provide micro-markets for wood chips produced from them.”

He added that the projects also will support forest health, a key part of the MDC’s mission, by making it economical to thin overcrowded forest stands and remove diseased and insect-infested trees.

Tuttle noted that the projects also will serve as examples to other schools, businesses and government agencies throughout Missouri that may be interested in wood-fueled energy systems.

Tuttle said that similar efforts in other states have proved successful. Missouri’s projects will be based on the Fuels for Schools and Beyond program. This is a partnership between the USDA Forest Service’s State & Private Forestry program, the State Foresters of Montana, North Dakota, Idaho, Nevada, Utah and Wyoming, and the Bitter Root Resource Conservation and Development (RC&D) Area, Inc., to promote and facilitate the use of forest biomass waste for heating, cooling and power in public and private buildings.

According to the Fuels for Schools and Beyond website (http://www.fuelsforschools.info), “In general, fuel cost savings for projects that have replaced natural gas boiler systems have averaged at 25% while facilities replacing fuel oil systems have enjoyed savings of 50-75%.”

The MDC is mailing grant solicitations to public schools in counties selected as the most heavily forested ones in the state: Barry, Bollinger, Butler, Carter, Crawford, Dent, Douglas, Howell, Iron, Madison, Oregon, Ozark, Perry, Phelps, Pulaski, Reynolds, Ripley, Shannon, Stone, Taney, Texas, Washington, Wayne and Wright.

Schools will have approximately six weeks to complete their applications and submit them to the MDC for consideration. Tuttle noted that, since the grants are funded through the ARRA, there is a very aggressive timeline to get the projects completed.

A multi-agency selection committee will rank grant applications. The rankings will be based on each school district’s economic needs, how dependent it is on the forest products industry, its ability to implement the project quickly, its proximity to public and private forest land and its partnerships with other public entities that could benefit from the biomass energy system.

For a copy of the MDC’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act Grant Application and Federal Financial Assistance Award for Missouri Fuels for Schools, visit http://mdc.mo.gov/20388.

For more information on the Fuels for Schools program and grants, contact John Tuttle at .

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