RUMFORD – A new chairlift to carry skiers up the novice and intermediate trails at Black Mountain will be ready when the ski area opens later this month.

That was but one part of a comprehensive update of the work and new services now under way at the mountain that was recently purchased by the nonprofit Maine Winter Sports Center.

Peter Phillips, director of skiing at the mountain, told the River Valley Growth Council board of directors Wednesday night that the renovation and expansion of the facility will most likely be an economic boost for the region.

There will be national events, such as the January Chevy Truck Cross-Country Nationals, as well as a new lodge, now in the planning stages. The new lodge, to be built next year, will be much larger than the current one that has served skiers since the mountain opened for business more than 40 years ago. It will seat as many as 350 people and will be available for conferences, seminars, concerts and other private and public functions during the off season.

Volunteers and others have been hard at work preparing the slopes and installing the new chairlift for the Dec. 20 opening.

Along with the new lift will be longer hours, Phillips said.

While the lodge is being built next year, he said the Greater Rumford Community Center summer program will likely have to move to another location, perhaps on another parcel at Black Mountain or somewhere else in the vicinity.

The development of the mountain is not an attempt to compete with other area ski areas, Phillips emphasized.

“It’s more of a development of a center, a place where kids (and others) can go,” he said.

Economic projects

Growth Council economic developer Scott Christiansen outlined how a $300,000 federal grant awarded to the organization last week toward the development of a bio-refinery in the area will be used. The money is one more step toward the hoped-for acquisition of a $4 million federal grant that would fund construction of a pilot bio-refinery plant.

Christiansen said because of the importance of focusing a huge portion of the council’s staff work time on the project, $150,000 will go toward staff salaries over the 18-month grant period. Another $125,000 will be spent to hire a contractor to conduct an in-depth marketing study of potential products that could be developed at such a refinery. The remaining $25,000 will be used to develop a small engine that can burn fuel that is produced in such a plant.

A bio-refinery, under a process known as pyrolysis, would turn trees into chemicals and fuel.

Another process under the bio-refinery project, known as fractionation, would expand the number and type of products that could be produced from trees. Christiansen said the Growth Council, together with cooperation from the University of Maine, Dartmouth College and the National Renewable Energy Lab in Colorado, are pushing for a state bond issue that would fund a research center on the fourth floor of the soon-to-be River Valley Technology Center in downtown Rumford.

“There are competing interests emerging. Other people have discovered bio-refinery,” he said. “We’re trying to maintain a lead that would make the River Valley the 11th member of the Clean Energy Alliance.”

He said nationwide, there are 10 members of this alliance that are working toward developing alternative energies and products.

eadams@sunjournal.com

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