AUGUSTA, Maine (AP) — Maine utility regulators are giving their conditional approval to an 80-mile natural gas pipeline to extend from Richmond to Madison.
Kennebec Valley Gas Company LLC managing member Mark Isaacson tells the Kennebec Journal in Augusta ( ) that the Public Utilities Commission's decision keeps the company on track to complete construction and deliver gas in 2013 or earlier. Isaacson says the pipeline will lower costs for residential, commercial and industrial consumers in central Maine.
Kennebec Valley Gas still must return to the PUC for final approval of its financing and engineering plans. Isaacson said the next steps are negotiating agreements with the largest potential users of the pipeline and finalizing tax agreements with the host communities
AUGUSTA, Maine — The Department of Veterans Affairs hospital for Maine veterans has a new 12-room hospice unit. The $3.1 million unit for end-of-life care opened Tuesday after a wing of the hospital in the Togus section of Augusta was renovated. The Kennebec Journal says that each of the rooms has its own bathroom, mini-refrigerator, microwave and television. There is also a room where families can meet and a common area that includes a double-sided fireplace with gas logs and a flat-screen television. The hospice facility was proposed for 2003, but it didn't receive the needed funding until 2009. Construction began last year and took eight months.
By CLARKE CANFIELD
PORTLAND, Maine
The largest natural gas provider in southern Maine is replacing more than 100 miles of pipeline in Portland and neighboring Westbrook as part of a 14-year, $60 million project to modernize the system. The project, which begins in April, involves replacing cast-iron pipes -- some of which are more than 100 years old -- with state-of-the-art plastic pipe, Unitil Corp. said Monday. The undertaking does not call for extending pipeline to areas that now don't have access to natural gas. But the upgraded pipes will be able to handle increased volumes of gas, allowing Unitil to offer gas service to additional customers on existing routes, said spokesman Alec O'Meara.
"This project is to modernize our system. It's going to make our system ready for growth in the 21st century," O'Meara said at a press conference in Portland. "It's going to make it more reliable. It's going to allow us to have greater (gas) pressure in the pipeline."
Unitil, which is based in Hampton, N.H., has about 28,000 customers in Maine, making it the largest natural gas supplier in the state. Customers are primarily located along the southern coast and in the Lewiston area. The company has hired New England Utility Constructors Inc. to dig up the old pipes and replace them with new pipes. The project will be done in stages across Portland and Westbrook on pipeline routes that now serve 17,000 customers. Construction costs will be paid for by ratepayers, O'Meara said. O'Meara said there are no imminent safety concerns with the existing pipes, and that the project simply upgrades the system now in place. Plastic pipe is more durable and flexible than cast iron and has an indefinite life expectancy, he said. New England Utility Constructors expects to use 30 to 40 workers during construction, which will result in some traffic delays and detours on roads where there is construction. When construction gets under way, it will be the largest natural gas pipe-replacement project in the Northeast, O'Meara said.
Passive House Slated For Maine College
by Susan DeFreitas, February 21st, 2011
Increasingly, institutions of higher learning are working to position themselves at the leading edge of the green building movement, so it should come as no surprise that Unity College of Unity, Maine–which bills itself as “America’s Environmental College”–will be the first in the nation to feature a residence hall built to Passive House standards (should the project receive certification upon completion).
Village Soup reports that GO Logic Homes of Belfast, Maine (which specializes in energy-efficient building for cold climates) was recently awarded the contract to build this “cottage-style” residence hall based on the principles of passive house design, which makes use of super-tight insulation, passive solar orientation and other green building technologies to radically reduce the energy needed for heating and cooling. The project–which was funded through a grant from The Kendeda Fund–will involve Unity College students in the design, construction, and monitoring of the facility through both curricular and co-curricular activities.
image via Unity College
“The direct involvement of college students in the design and construction of green student housing is a paradigm shift,” said Robert Constantine, Vice President for College Advancement at Unity College, in a statement. He goes on to note that Unity hopes to create a new model for how colleges and universities can approach not only how they construct campus buildings, but in how they conceive of them.
GO Logic will be working closely with the design firm of Ann Kearsley in creating the Student Passive House, the first of three 10-person residential halls to be built in phase and which are scheduled for completion by the start of the Fall 2011 semester.
CMMC unveils new emergency department
Historic building to become apartments for seniors
LEWISTON — Hallways and rooms are littered with evidence of the building's former life as a nursing home — old magazines, time cards, notebooks about patients' diets and broken shutters. Paint is peeling in many rooms and windows are dirty or broken.
"We know the roof leaks, too, and the basement's been taking on some water," said Jim Dowling, executive director of the Lewiston Housing Authority. "But overall, the building is in surprisingly good shape. The structure itself is good."
Crews are set to begin interior work next month to turn the building at 81 Ash St. into 32 apartments for seniors. The project is expected to cost $7.6 million.
"What's really interesting about this project is that this is a National Historic Register property and there have been several attempts to rehabilitate it over time," said Mark McComas, Lewiston's acting economic development director. "They've all started with the best of intentions, but I think it's a very challenging project for a private investor."
The project will combine state and federal low-income and historic-building tax credits, HOME fund money from the federal department of Housing and Urban Development and a city tax-increment financing district to make ends meet.
The three-and-a-half-story brick building was built in 1892 and used as an orphanage by the Grey Sisters of the Immaculate Conception until about 1973, when it served as a boarding home for a few years. It became Intown Manor and was operated as an assisted-living facility until it closed in 2005. It's been closed since, as developers tried to make the project work.
Read More at: Sun Journal
Maine college begins construction of biomass plant:
By Anna Austin | December 29, 2010
Colby College in south central Maine’s Waterville has begun construction of an $11.2 million biomass cogeneration plant, which will replace the use of about 1 million gallons of heating fuel, or 90 percent of what the school uses in a year’s time.
Producing steam for heat, hot water and electricity, the new facility will have an 8,300-square-foot footprint with multiple levels including a below-grade fuel storage area and two 400-horsepower boilers. The plant will gasify about 22,000 tons of wood chips and forest products waste sourced from materials within a 50-mile radius of the Waterville campus.
With savings on energy costs, the college estimates that the project should pay for itself in six to 10 years.
The project is expected to be Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design or LEED certified and support’s Colby College’s goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2015. The school currently purchases 100 percent of its electricity from renewable sources, which includes biomass, wind and hydro. An on-campus cogeneration turbine supplies about 10 percent of the campus's electrical needs from steam-plant exhaust.
The University of New England has received $10 million from the Harold Alfond Foundation for the construction of the Harold Alfond Athletics Complex and for the university's health care work force education program.
The 105,000-square-foot complex will be situated between the new Sokokis Hall and blue turf athletic field along Route 9. This gift was announced this morning by Greg Powell, chairman of the Harold Alfond Foundation, and is the largest gift the university has received to date. The second largest gift was the $2.5 million donated by the Harold Alfond Foundation in 1995 for the construction of the Harold Alfond Center for Health Sciences, where today's press conference was held. "This is truly transformative," University of New England President Danielle Ripich said. The 105,000-square-foot complex will be situated between the new Sokokis Hall and blue turf athletic field along Route 9. The project will include an ice hockey rink, basketball court, classroom space, fitness center and multi-purpose indoor practice courts that will also be used for large events on campus with a seating capacity of 3,000. Powell said the gift asks the university to put "a shovel in the ground by next spring and raise $7 million (in matching funds)." "I think we can do that," Ripich said.
Natural gas line expands to Freeport, thanks to big customer
By: Tux Turkel - The Portland Press Herald - Decembe 04, 2010
Gray burns 50,000 gallons of fuel oil per year at the 94-room inn. At today's energy prices, he figures natural gas could cut his heat and hot water bills by 30 percent. "Natural gas is a big bonus," he said. "We've been missing out on that." After months of planning and construction, Maine Natural Gas began pumping fuel underground to Freeport on Friday, in the company's first expansion into a new community in nearly a decade. Several businesses, town-owned properties including the high school, and a few homes already have hooked up. Next year, gas will reach the Harraseeket Inn and the Hilton Garden Inn at the northern end of the village, and extend south along Route 1 to the business park on Stonewood Drive. The pipeline could approach the Yarmouth town line in 2012. State officials who want Maine to cut its heavy dependence on imported oil hold up natural gas as a cleaner, more secure energy source. Gas also is much less expensive today than most heating fuels, including oil, a benefit cited during the gubernatorial campaign by Gov.-elect Paul LePage. But underground gas lines are costly to install, and that remains an obstacle to wider expansion in Maine. Just as a major shopping center needs an anchor store, gas companies won't run lines without big users to help amortize the investment. In Freeport, it's L.L. Bean. The company burns 200,000 gallons of oil and 300,000 gallons of propane annually at its giant facilities around town. With gas prices low, the time to convert seemed right. Bean wanted natural gas not only to save money, but to reduce air emissions associated with climate change, said Carolyn Beem, a spokeswoman for the company. "We've been talking about it for five years," she said. Maine Natural Gas is a subsidiary of Iberdrola, the parent company of Central Maine Power Co. It has 2,330 customers, in Windham, Gorham, Topsham, Bowdoin and Brunswick. Its last major expansion came in 2001, to serve the Brunswick Naval Air Station. To get to Freeport, the company installed an 8-mile spur from Pownal and the Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline, which connects the U.S. gas network with the Sable Island gas fields off Nova Scotia and the Canaport LNG terminal in New Brunswick. It built a pressure regulator station in Pownal and buried 8-inch-diameter, high-density plastic pipe along roads leading to Route 1. The average cost was $370,000 a mile, said Darrel Quimby, vice president of Maine Natural Gas. Construction has ended with the coming of winter. It will resume in the spring. Several businesses have hooked up and many more are waiting, Quimby said. Some homeowners who live directly along the route also are connecting. The company brings the line to the buildings at no cost; owners pay to convert their heating equipment. The distribution network will branch out over time, but it's not likely to cross into Yarmouth unless a major customer emerges.
The economic downturn and new domestic supplies have made gas a relative bargain today, according to federal energy department calculations. When heat output and typical burner efficiencies are considered, gas costs about half as much as home heating oil priced at $2.74 a gallon, the average price in southern Maine this week. With natural gas priced now at about $1 a therm for home use, the fuel can be less expensive than firewood at $200 a cord, depending on burn efficiencies. Commercial customers pay even less for gas, and its availability in Freeport is exciting to economic development officials. Sande Updegraph sent e-mails last spring to businesses around the Desert Road-Route 1 corridor, telling them gas was coming. Updegraph, executive director of the Freeport Economic Development Corp., has since heard that businesses including Buck's Naked BBQ, Gritty McDuff's and the Hampton Inn are connected, with others in the queue for next year. Meanwhile, the town is planning a small business park along Desert Road, and gas is a selling point to one company that may locate there. Gas expansion south on Route 1 over the next two years would make it easier for the town to market that stretch for business growth, she said.
Gas in Freeport is encouraging to John Kerry, the state's energy director. It may give some businesses an option of buying equipment to generate heat and electricity onsite. But Kerry is frustrated by how hard it is to expand natural gas in Maine. His office has been talking with Maine Natural Gas about building a spur from the Maritimes & Northeast Pipeline in Windsor to the Togus VA Medical Center and on to the state office complexes in Augusta. So far, it has proven too costly. "It's very challenging," Kerry said. "The bottom line is return on investment." As gas arrives in Freeport, oil dealers are watching a threat to their business. Oil and kerosene warm roughly 80 percent of the homes in Maine. As wholesale prices rise and fall, oil continues to represent a good value over time, said Jamie Py, president of the Maine Energy Marketers Association. "Gas is a strong competitor," he said. "It's a competition we're fighting with every day."
TD Bank Call Center Opens in Auburn:
Lewiston Sun Journal, September 08, 2010
Many aspects of sustainability were addressed down to the last detail. The call center is accessible by multiple lines of public transportation and bicycle parking is available for employees. Water saving plumbing fixtures were used and the landscape was designed with drought tolerant plants and shrubs so that the facility would not require an in-ground irrigation system. Construction was done with recycled and regionally manufactured materials. Designed to supply high levels of fresh air to building occupants, the call center also features abundant windows and a 40′ x 40′ skylight to provide natural light and reduce lighting loads. Importantly, the building will be powered by 100 percent green power sources.
The most unique feature is the 9-ton boulder at its center point that was mined from the Christian Hill Quarry in Auburn. The boulder was cleaned but not polished, and is one of many local design elements. Others include handcrafted furniture pieces made out of cherry wood from sustainably managed forests and two large, colorful wall murals that depict the spring and autumn seasons in the Pine Tree State.
Project creates apartments for Lewiston senior citizens:
Portland Press Herald (ME) March 17, 2010
A group of more than 100 community members, officials and residents celebrated the completion of the Birch Hill senior housing project at the end of February. The project, which has created 20 apartments of affordable housing for the elderly on Birch Street in Lewiston, started construction a year ago on property that had been vacant for nearly 15 years. Its completion was made possible by a public-private partnership among Lewiston, Lewiston Housing Authority and Maine State Housing.
CMMC to get Multimillion-Dollar Makeover
Tuesday, June 23, 2009 at 7:54AM
LEWISTON, Maine -- A $45 million construction project is soon coming to Lewiston's Central Maine Medical Center. Officials unveiled plans of the project Tuesday, which will nearly double the size of the emergency room department and more than triple its laboratory space. Hospital officials said the facility is in need of major upgrades and it's expensive to meet the growing needs of the public. Officials said it's a combination of cash reserves, bonds and the state partly paying back MaineCare patients debt -- that money coming from federal stimulus dollars. Officials said because of the debt repayment, the project can now move forward. The state still owes little more than $20 million for MaineCare patients. Crews should break ground by late September or early October.
