A win-win: School gets energy-efficient wood heating

Northport School District Superintendent Don Baribault had an expensive problem on his hands: An old diesel boiler in the preschool-through-eighth-grade building on the Northport Elementary/Middle/High School campus was failing. It needed constant maintenance, but the district didn’t have the budget to upgrade its heating system.

Then the district received a call from the Washington State University Energy Program, inquiring if the district had an interest in some grant money to install wood energy at the school through a state-funded bioenergy pilot program. It would be the first time the state installed a wood pellet boiler for a public building.