Borough officials met with the Washington state developer who has grand plans for the former mill property at 6-Mile. They listened as he presented his ideas at a public workshop. And they wisely made no commitments, other than to continue listening.
It’s not that the borough is against development proposals to create jobs; City Hall fully supports any reasonable idea that would help the town’s struggling economy. It’s just that officials don’t want to write any checks, make any promises or sign any commitments until they know more.
Cautious is good.
Dale Borgford talked a lot about his plans for the former mill site, which he had toured a few days before the Dec. 18 public meeting at City Hall.
His list wasn’t endless, though the bounty sure sounded like everything the town could want: As many as 100 high-paying new jobs, plus a job training program; a unique biomass burner that would incinerate trash and wood waste at extremely high temperatures to heat massive greenhouses that could, at full build-out, produce several hundred thousand pounds of fruits and vegetables a year; a school lunch program; a plant to bottle 40,000 gallons a day of water; and an operation to turn fish waste into fertilizer.
He also talked of buying and tearing down the former hospital building, pouring concrete and building a retail setup with a UPS store, sandwich shop and hardware store specializing in stainless steel fasteners and tools.
Borgford said he thinks he could have the biomass burner and greenhouses in commercial production in two years — an incredibly optimistic timeline, as he has not yet applied for any permits or even started negotiating a deal for the borough-owned land.
He said he and his wife are willing to put up $14 million of the estimated $87 million price tag for developing the 6-Mile site. Grants and loans could cover the rest, though nothing has been lined up.
He did not ask at the public meeting for anything from the borough, and officials were wise not to offer anything other than encouragement for the private venture.
Borgford acknowledges that the biomass burner has been his dream for decades; he wants to show that burning garbage could heat greenhouses, produce a bountiful harvest, protect the environment and make money.
It seems too good to be true. But as long as it’s his money, and not the borough’s, all the more growing power to him. The borough should sit still and see what sprouts.
- Wrangell Sentinel
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