Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 2, 1994 TAG: 9411020090
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: STEPHEN FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: BLACKSBURG LENGTH: Medium
The contrast in temperatures served to highlight one of the questions raised in the public hearing, held by the Department of Environmental Quality in the auditorium at Tech's Donaldson Brown Continuing Education Center:
Does Tech really need the new boiler?
The school hopes to build an $8.5 million boiler within the next four years. Its schedule was pushed back earlier this year when public comment and the discovery that Tech had submitted inaccurate data to the Department of Environmental Quality forced the school to redraw its plan.
Tech says it needs the new boiler to help heat the million square feet of space it has added in the last two decades and the million it could add during the next 10 years, Spencer Hall, the school's assistant director of facilities, has said. The school last built a boiler in 1972.
But Richard Hirsh, a Tech history professor, suggested that the school should do more to conserve energy before it tries to produce more. The school has made some conservation efforts, such as adding insulation to the roofs of campus buildings, but some professors find themselves opening classroom windows during the winter because their rooms are too hot.
"What good are new roofs when open windows leak huge amounts of energy?" Hirsh said. "You don't build something unless you need it."
Hall said the school is constantly trying to find ways to conserve energy.
Neil Obenshain, a regional permit manager for the Department of Environmental Quality, said it's not the department's job to analyze whether Tech needs the boiler, just to weigh the merits of the application itself.
Compared with its previous proposal, Tech's new plan would produce less overall pollution, all sides agree. That's because Tech agreed to decommission its oldest boiler, a 46-year-old coal-fired model, if the state grants it a permit for the new one. The offer allows Tech to avoid stricter federal environmental guidelines.
But opponents don't think that move is enough.
Shireen Parsons, chairwoman of the Sierra Club New River Group, urged the Department of Environmental Quality to go over all its files pertaining to Tech and consider the school's overall environmental record before deciding whether to grant the boiler permit.
And Earl Blanchard, a Tech sophomore, decried Tech's boiler operations, saying the school should implement more controls. "Virginia Tech has decided to get by with a 'D-' on emissions controls," Blanchard said.
But some, such as Bill Mashburn, a mechanical engineering professor at Tech, supported the application. Mashburn said coal should be used over natural gas because it's cheaper and because of the political aspects surrounding coal production in Virginia.
"Coal is a natural resource in the state of Virginia, and we should use it," Mashburn said.
The Department of Environmental Quality should make a decision on Tech's application by the end of the month, said Obenshain. The department has extended the written comment period until Nov. 15, and permit decisions are usually made about two weeks after the comment deadline, he said.
by CNB