SALEM TOWNSHIP – A large metal silo lies across a cement base on the east side of Mt. Abram High School. A maintenance crew is making adjustments to the silo before it is to be hoisted into place on the base later this month. A separate building under construction stands next to the silo to house the new boiler.

The silo will hold a supply of wood pellets intended to feed the boiler, which will heat Mt. Abram High School, said SAD 58 Superintendent Quenten Clark. The boiler, being shipped from Austria, should be ready by November, he said.

With a high school that burns approximately 40,000 gallons of heating oil annually, the school system was looking for alternatives, he said.

Celebrating the installation of a wind turbine on one side of the school last week while a crew worked on the silo on the other side of the school, Principal Jeanne Tucker called the projects another step forward in the “greening of Mt. Abram.”

“About 20 percent of children in schools in Vermont go to a school heated by wood,” Clark said. Having schools here return to wood heat presents not only an option for savings but also an effort to keep money in this area, “a Maine solution for Maine people,” he said.

With the reduced rate of $3.50 per gallon that SAD 58 has obtained this year, the 40,000 gallons represents about $150,000 to heat the high school for one winter.

“Even a 10-cent increase in the price of oil represents about $15,000 for heating the school,” Clark said.

Pellets are available in nearby Lac Megantic, Quebec, Canada, as well as mills in Athens and Burlington, N.H., he said. Clark also anticipates the potential later this season to be able to buy the pellets within his own school district when a pellet mill in Strong opens, he added.

The district intends to convert a school a year, he said.

Wood pellets sell at $170 a ton. The district expects to use 43 tons – 86,000 pounds – of pellets to heat the school, said Dan Worcester, director of maintenance and transportation for SAD 58.

The new boiler is expected to heat the whole school.