OLD TOWN – Construction on Georgia-Pacific’s biomass boiler is 74 percent complete and on schedule, according to mill officials.

The first fire to test the boiler equipment still is scheduled for Feb. 22, and the project is expected to be completed in March, G-P spokeswoman Kelli Manigault said Thursday.

The boiler is expected to save the paper mill $5.9 million a year, or $113,500 per week, in energy costs and add four new jobs.

Some residents, however, have concerns about the boiler, such as what will be used for fuel and the effect of emissions on air quality.

“They filed an application to burn solid waste,” Debbie Gibbs of Alton said Friday. “Construction and demolition debris is included in that, but it’s just a hop, skip and a jump to burn municipal solid waste in the incinerator.”

G-P recently applied to the Maine Department of Environmental Protection for permission to use construction and demolition debris wood chips as a substitute fuel source.

That application is being reviewed, according to Karen Knuuti of the DEP’s Bureau of Remediation and Waste Management’s Division of Solid Waste.

“It’s certainly not the first application of its type,” Knuuti said. She explained that the mill wants to burn only clean, processed debris, which would consist mainly of wood, and have other materials removed during processing.

Gibbs is a member of We the People, a group of area residents opposed to the landfill deal. She, along with some other concerned residents, wrote to the DEP requesting a public hearing on the boiler issue.

“We did receive six letters from the public requesting either Board [of Environmental Protection] jurisdiction, or a hearing, or both,” Knuuti said Friday. “Those haven’t been decided on yet.”

The DEP project manager said she was unsure when that decision would be made.

The boiler is a key piece in the West Old Town Landfill deal, which has created controversy among area residents in the last year.

The three-way landfill deal in Old Town among the state, Georgia-Pacific Corp. and Casella Waste Systems was designed to keep the city’s paper mill open while addressing the state’s waste disposal problem.

The state bought the site from G-P for $26 million and chose Casella, which runs the Pine Tree Landfill in Hampden, to operate it.

Residents’ appeals on the landfill deal have been denied by the DEP and BEP, and We the People and Orono resident Paul Schroeder have taken the case to Penobscot County Superior Court. No dates have been set, however, for a hearing on the case.

As part of the deal, the G-P boiler is being built and updated using money from the sale and an additional $1.2 million provided by the mill.

The landfill operator also has agreed to provide G-P with the construction and demolition debris for fuel at a reduced rate.

In addition to the composition of the fuel being burned, some residents also are concerned about emissions from the boiler.

“We’re really concerned about the air quality,” Gibbs said.

Last May, G-P purchased a used biomass boiler from Boralex Inc. of Montreal. The boiler, which was built in 1986, was located at the company’s Athens facility, where it was dismantled and taken to the Old Town mill.

Although several upgrades have been made to the equipment, residents say it’s not enough.

“The technology is obsolete,” Gibbs said. “They should be tearing them down, not putting new ones up.”