Wood pellet plant to open in region
State’s first manufacturer will initially produce 10,000 tons of pellets a year, beginning in April.
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Chris Brooks displays a bag of wood pellets Thursday at his plant in North Clarendon. Vyto Starinskas / Rutland Herald |
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By Bruce Edwards STAFF WRITER - Published: March 6, 2009
NORTH CLARENDON — The first wood pellet mill in the state is expected to be up and running next month in the Airport Business Park.
Katie Adams of Dorset, who started Cat Country radio, and partner Chris Brooks have launched Vermont Wood Pellet Co. in the same 12,000-square-foot building that housed a wood pallet manufacturing business.
Brooks, with five generations of family forestry experience behind him, is running tests with full-scale production expected by the end of April.
Adams and Brooks began looking at starting a pellet mill more than a year ago, investigating possible sites in Middlebury and Randolph before settling on the Airport Business Park.
Although home heating oil prices have fallen from their record highs of last summer, Adams is one of many who are convinced oil prices won't stay low and that demand will continue to increase for alternative sources of energy.
"We just found a lot of people who want to reduce their dependence on oil," said Adams, who started country radio station WJEN, 16 years ago.
Brooks, her partner, has an extensive background in forestry. His family owns forest land in Wisconsin that's harvested for a variety of uses.
The building had been used to manufacture wood pallets until the company closed its doors last year.
Vermont Wood Pellet is leasing the building from Kent Belden.
Jamie Stewart, executive director of the Rutland Economic Development Corp., said Thursday that Adams and Brooks are starting exactly the type of business Vermont is looking to attract.
Stewart also said the pair took the right steps and had a sound business plan to get their business up and running.
Carrara Mechanical Systems of Castleton designed and engineered the equipment, which will initially produce 10,000 tons of pellets a year. The plant is designed to provide pellets within a 35- to 50-mile radius of Rutland.
Brooks said Vermont Wood Pellet Co. will make its pellets primarily from secondary pine logs that are harvested locally.
"Literally, we are refining logs," Brooks said. "You take the bark off, chip it, dry the chips, then make those chips into sawdust and then compress the sawdust into pellets."
The North Clarendon mill will package the pellets in 40-pound bags for local distribution while Foster Brothers in Middlebury will bag pellets for Addison County. Bourdeau Bros. in Middlebury is the distributor.
Vermont Wood Pellet Co. will employ seven people, including production manager Matt McKinstry.
It's the second time a pellet mill has been proposed for the Belden building in the Airport Business Park.
Luis Algarin of Vermont Wood Energy announced plans to manufacture pellets but ran into problems with Belden over the lease. Algarin was later denied state tax incentives for the project under the Vermont Employment Growth Incentive program.
bruce.edwards@rutlandherald.com
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