The mayor convened the public workshop, inviting Washington state-based entrepreneur Dale Borgford to lay out for borough officials his plans to build biomass boilers that would burn trash from around Southeast to heat large commercial greenhouses at the site of the former 6-Mile mill.
He also wants to build a plant capable of filling large plastic bottles with 40,000 gallons a day of clean water from a creek at the north end of the property, or from rainwater if the creek flow is insufficient.
And his list includes a plant to turn fish waste into fertilizer for commercial sale to agriculture operations in the Lower 48 states.
“The bioenergy thing, it’s our dream. So we will make it happen,” Borgford said at the Dec. 18 meeting at City Hall, attended by members of the borough assembly, port commission, economic development board, planning and zoning commission and borough staff.
Borgford said he and his wife, Sharon, “do quite well with our dozen companies,” and are willing to put up $14 million toward the envisioned $87 million development at 6-Mile. They will look to loans and grants for the rest.
“I’ve got a federal lobbyist” who will go after grants, he said, adding he would prefer to raise at least half of the remaining $73 million for the project from grants to reduce his borrowing needs and loan payments.
The Borgfords live in Colville, Washington, a town of about 5,000 residents in the eastern part of the state. Dale Borgford, 84, told the audience at the Dec. 18 meeting that he owns, has built or has operated cattle ranches, a water bottling company, sawmills, a metal fabrication operation — and has been working on his bioenergy dream for about four decades.
A 2009 Spokane newspaper report said he has manufactured tractor blades, claws, grapplers and other equipment for the farm and timber industries since about 1980.
“I’ve been playing with that burner for 38 years,” he said. The biomass burner is not in commercial operation anywhere, he said, adding that he has a small unit at his shop. In a full-size operation at the Wrangell site, the burner would heat up a closed-loop system of fluid-filled pipes to transfer warmth to the greenhouses.
His initial plans call for 18 greenhouses, totaling 73,000 square feet of growing space, with some hydroponic setups but mostly fruits and vegetables growing in soil. Eventually, Borgford said he would like to expand to 54 buildings, capable of producing more than 2,500 tons of food a year for sale around Alaska and out of state.
The borough purchased the mill property for $2.5 million in 2022, and has been looking to attract a large, industrial user to either buy or lease much of the almost 40 acres to create jobs and generate property tax revenue. A small portion of the land is leased to Juneau-based Channel Construction, which runs a scrap metal recycling operation at the site, paying the borough $27,000 a year on a five-year lease.
“We want to create jobs and industry,” Borough Manager Mason Villarma said at the start of the meeting.
Villarma added that the borough continues to work on plans for moving the municipally owned barge ramp and freight staging area from the downtown waterfront to the 6-Mile mill property. But even if the freight operations move to the site, that would still leave more than 30 acres for Borgford’s project, the manager said.
“It’s a very creative proposal,” Villarma said at the end of the Dec. 18 meeting.
“This is a fact-finding mission,” Mayor Patty Gilbert said in introducing Borgford.
The developer explained his system would include equipment to grind up the trash, wood waste and whatever other organic material is available into small pieces which then would get pressed into blocks and fed into the eight-sided burner he has designed.
Piping would transfer the heat to the nearby greenhouses. The project also would use the heat to dry out the trash and other organic material before it goes into the burners.
The plant is planned for three burners, he said, capable of burning a total of 70 tons a day in continuous operation, far more than Wrangell could supply, requiring that Borgford BioEnergy burn trash from multiple Southeast communities.
Wrangell generates between 40 to 50 tons of waste a week, Public Works Director Tom Wetor explained at the meeting.
Borgford said his plan is for other communities to pay the borough to take their trash at rates far below what the towns currently pay private haulers to take the garbage to approved landfills out of state.
The borough, he said, could keep the revenue it earns by charging neighboring Southeast towns, and he would burn the trash for free to generate heat for his greenhouses.
“We will burn it in a very environmentally friendly way,” explaining that temperatures as high as 4,000 degrees would ensure nothing escapes from the burners. “It can burn fiberglass.”
He also wants to build a small sawmill at the site for specialty cutting. And he would surround the property with landscaping, including fruit- or vegetable-bearing trees. “It will be a Southeast showcase,” that could develop into a tourist attraction, he said.
His plans also include funding a school lunch program and a job training program to grow a local workforce. The entire project could create between 60 and 100 jobs, Borgford said, citing the lack of enough workers in town as his biggest challenge.
The water plant would fill one-, three- and five-gallon plastic bottles. “The water has to be totally pure,” he said, adding that his plans include flavored water, too.
Mark Mitchell, who owns property just north of the mill site, said the small creek can turn into a trickle during the summer, prompting Borgford to respond that he could use rainwater collected from the greenhouse roofs to supply his bottling plant.
The water operation is not dependent on the biomass burners.
The burners would not generate electricity; the development would pay for municipal power to run its lighting, motors, conveyors and other equipment.
State and federal permits will be required, which Borgford said will be “very costly.”
He also has plans to buy, tear down and develop the former Wrangell hospital property into a hardware store specializing in stainless steel fasteners and tools, a UPS store for shipping and receiving packages, a Kubota generator franchise, a retail store to sell the greenhouse produce and bottled water, and a breakfast and sandwich shop that would use blemished produce from the greenhouse.
The company does not want to interfere with existing businesses in town. “We want to fill the gaps.”
The borough has been trying to sell the hospital property for the past four years, with no signed offers. The asking price is $498,000.
“I don’t have all the answers in life,” Borgford said in an interview a few days after the City Hall meeting. His plan is to put together a team of professionals for every aspect of the project.
He told borough officials that he is building similar bioenergy plants in Angola and Columbia, and elsewhere in South America, though he provided no specifics and online research by the Sentinel turned up no information about Borgford BioEnergy in those countries.
He also reported he had looked at property for his burner in Juneau and Petersburg, but did not proceed.
Borgford said the Wrangell plant could be running in test mode in 18 to 19 months, with full operations in 24 months, if he can strike a deal with the borough for the land, get the necessary permits and line up financing.
Villarma said the borough will wait to see what the developer proposes.
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