Ohio University will give $5.5 million to Columbia Gas of Ohio to move away from coal power and toward natural gas heating.
Ohio University has already moved the Hocking River.
But to access natural gas, it has to go underneath it.
OU will work with Columbia Gas of Ohio to thread a medium-pressure natural gas pipeline from Dairy Barn Lane, under the Hocking River, to the Lausche Heating Plant site, as a part of the university’s goal to break its reliance on coal and meet federal carbon emission standards.
The university previously rerouted the Hocking River to mitigate the season flooding that used to drown some parts of campus.
OU’s Board of Trustees, its governing board, approved in January a $5.5 million payment to Columbia Gas so the company can design and build a natural gas pipeline, which the university will share with other gas customers in Athens.
Racing to meet energy deadlines
Pipeline construction is a university effort to meet energy deadlines, said Senior Associate Vice President of Information Technologies and Administrative Services Joe Lalley.
OU intends to wean off coal-powered heat by the end of 2015, and it must comply with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s pollutant emissions regulation requirements by Jan. 31, 2016.
The contract with Columbia Gas is still under negotiation, but Lalley said he hopes to have the contract ready by the end of the month.
Lalley said he expects allowing Columbia Gas to construct and own the pipeline – rather than OU building its own pipeline – will save the university at least $1 million.
Grant Stover, co-chair of the Environmental Committee on OU Student Senate, Post columnist and a sophomore studying English, said he felt taken aback when the pipeline was discussed at the board’s meeting.
“I’ve worked with this stuff every day, and I have not heard anything about this, and I was completely floored,” Stover said. “There was not much input, other than the people who made that decision.”
OU officials have been discussing the pipeline for several months, and the city has issued a flood hazard area permit needed to do construction near the area, said Athens Service Safety Director Paula Horan-Moseley in an email.
“We trust that the project will be constructed in a manner to alleviate any potential adverse environmental effects,” Moseley said in the email.
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Drilling under the Hocking
To build the pipeline, Columbia Gas will drill horizontally, placing the pipeline about 25 feet below the Hocking’s bed, Lalley said. Construction workers also must take the nearby buildings, vegetation and the Ridges’ grotto into account when laying the path.
Stover said he had not seen the issue brought to the Sierra Student Coalition for Ohio University, which consists of students and Athens residents.
“I think this is a concern that not only affects OU but the Athens community at large,” he said.
Stover said he would rather see the university work toward a longer-term solution using renewable energy to heat up campus, rather than convert solely to natural gas.
“I think it’s great that the university wants to get off coal, and our views align there, but how do we get to carbon neutrality in the best way possible?” Stover said. “This only sets the problem down the line 20 years.”
Annie Laurie Cadmus, director of OU’s Office of Sustainability and someone who gives input on energy infrastructure decisions, said OU is looking into ways to power its systems with renewable energy.
The university will go forward with the transition to solely natural gas-powered heating because officials say there is not a renewable energy option that could be implemented to power the entire campus capacity right now.
OU also has a commitment to make 20 percent of its energy sources powered by renewable energy, such as wind or solar power, by 2020.
“It’s not a question of why not; it’s a question of how to make the portfolio happen, how to make sure we’re meeting the demand,” Cadmus said. “Right now, there’s just no alternative energy that can get us there tomorrow, so right now we need to plan while making sure we keep the community safe and happy on this campus.”
Federal energy laws
The pressure to regulate emissions from the heating industry came from the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act through Maximum Allowable Control Technology, or MACT requirements.
Scott Miller, director of the Consortium for Energy, Economy and the Environment for the Voinovich School, said MACT will now require heating and other industries to install technology that “scrubs” the air and gas for pollutants like sulfur oxide and nitrous oxide.
The Lausche plant was built in 1967, before these technologies were required, Miller said.
“You’re seeing some really strong Maximum Allowable Control Technology coming online right now,” Miller said. “It’s putting a bit of a pinch on the coal fire technology.”
As the EPA’s deadline approaches, Lalley said OU’s seen the effects of the rush to be federally compliant in the energy contract market.
“We’re not the only people in the country who’ve been trying to do this, so prices have been going up, availability has been going down,” he said.
OU could ask for an extension of the EPA’s January 2016 deadline without penalty. The university has not done so yet, Lalley said.
Lalley attributed the university’s inability to act earlier on the 1990 requirements to decreased funding from the state, though he believes the university made “good faith efforts” to look into it sooner.
“When you’re getting $22 million every other year from the state, and you have a $79 million or a $100 million project to be energy compliant, well that’s hard, and I suspect that my predecessors struggled very hard with having to deal with that,” Lalley said.
Along with its modifications to the energy infrastructure, Cadmus said OU will decrease its overall energy usage through repairing the campus’ steam leaks caused by deferred maintenance, as well as keeping individuals mindful of how much energy they use daily.
“We won’t ever reach carbon neutrality without people doing things like that,” Cadmus said.
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