Hiding In Plain Sight: SLU’s Environmental Disaster Waiting to Happen

St. Lawrence University’s Kinsley Heating Plant’s aging boilers are at an increased risk of a potential failure. Switching to new, green options is made difficult by the plant’s centrality on campus. SLU is currently facing many financial challenges, some of them related to enrollment are obvious – the hidden deficit in the infrastructure is less noticeable and oft ignored. 

Justin Gotham, who oversees the plant as utilities manager, said during a September tour that the plant’s boilers are at least three years beyond the day they were expected to fail. “We have engineers come in, and they always say that they’re past their time,” he said.  

Travis Mousaw, a boiler tender who works at SLU’s heating plant had a different timeline. “They were set to expire last year,” said Mousaw. “But the school has no plan to replace them.”  

The average industrial boiler works safely for around 25 years. SLU’s were installed in the 1970s, meaning they’ve already more than doubled their original life expectancy.  

The plant’s three boilers use natural gas to create steam, sending it via pipes to radiators across campus. Shell Energy North America supplies the gas – it is piped from western Canada to Cornwall, Ontario, then crosses the border in Massena before being trucked to Canton.  

SLU is currently storing 23,000 gallons of oil behind the heating plant which the school can sell to Shell Energy or use to fuel the plant in the event of an emergency, like a natural gas shortage.  

In case of a boiler failure, SLU signs a yearly contract ensuring that a portable, “roller boiler,” can be temporarily used to heat the university.  

Apart from being old, these boilers are not good for the environment. SLU’s smokestack, where the boilers’ exhaust is funneled out of, makes it even worse.  

Mousaw said that the smokestack currently has no filters in it, meaning that emissions from the plant are as potent as they can be. “It’s the furthest thing from environmentally friendly there is,” he said.  

 
Lofty Sustainability Goals, Difficult to Implement 

In 2007, SLU committed to being fully carbon neutral by 2040. One of the major aspects of that goal was reforming how SLU is heated. In a 2014 Hill News article, Environmental Studies Professor Jon Rosales even said that “getting rid of the smokestack [at the heating plant] is one of my biggest hopes.”  

But, moving on from the current heating infrastructure is difficult for SLU for three reasons.  

Firstly, as already mentioned SLU’s plant is centrally located, and geothermal heating pumps cannot be installed beneath the roads, student center and two dormitories on the plant’s flanks.  

Most other schools’ plants are built on the outskirts of campus, making green heating options like geothermal heating, better known as heat pumping, possible.  

Geothermal heating pumps water through pipes buried a few feet underground, transferring heat from the ground into air vents. This process requires large amounts space, which comes at a premium when a school’s heating plant is in the middle of campus. 

Secondly, the town and village of Canton’s electrical infrastructure is ill-equipped to support the influx of electricity SLU would need to power hundreds of fans, compressors and circulating pumps needed for geothermal heating.  

Thirdly, SLU’s current electrical provider, Constellation Newenergy Inc., currently generates 55 percent of its electricity using natural gas and coal. That means that those emissions would still be created on SLU’s behalf, even if they’re not burning in Canton.  

Additional efforts to make the plant itself more efficient have fallen into disrepair. The plant once had an operating cogenerator, which used steam discharged from the boilers and a turbine to produce more energy. During the tour, Gotham said that it broke several years ago. “It may not work again,” said Gotham, “but never say never.”     

However, some solutions outside of the plant itself have helped. For example, Gotham reported that efficiency improved after Dean Eaton’s windows were re-sealed.  

Trying to Bring the Issue to Light 

Mike Iverson, SLU’s sustainability coordinator was instrumental in making the tour of the plant happen. It was part of his ongoing lunch and learn series that he established last year so students could learn more about the true state of SLU’s sustainability. “Let’s just start at ground zero, I call it a dilemma,” said Iverson of the heating plant. “It needs some more transparency, that’s what I was hoping would come out of this tour.”  

Iverson said that a lot of people, students and faculty included, misunderstand the context around the heating plant. “It actually makes our jobs easier if people know stuff about the heating plant,” he said. “Some people learn about the boilers and the heating plant from people who should not be saying anything about it.”  

Sometimes blame for the plant’s perceived environmental impact gets placed on facilities and operations, the SLU department Iverson is employed under. “Whatever the cause is, I didn’t cause it, and you didn’t cause it,” said Iverson. “We’re not into the blame game; we’re trying to solve it.”  

Iverson moved into his current position just over two years ago. The school could have replaced the heating plant long before that. New industrial boilers typically run anywhere from $10,000 to $100,000. 

‘Greenwashing’ at SLU 

Shiffan Shaffe ’25 is the president of the SLU Environmental Action Organization, a club founded to promote grass roots student climate activism.  

Shiffan said he believes that SLU has spent money creating offices like the Center for the Environment instead of dealing with issues like the heating plant. “The center for the environment is a very goal centric initiative that’s used to promote admissions rates,” said Shaffe.  “They fail to address real environmental concerns on campus.” 

SLU created the office in 2024 and allocated $1.2 million to it. Shaffe accused the center of trying to “greenwash” campus. Greenwashing is commonly defined as a marketing tactic employed by companies trying to use their sustainability efforts to market their product as being more environmentally friendly than it is.  

Reuters reported on American universities greenwashing in 2022. Looking at the cases of Harvard, New York University, and Dartmouth — all schools that feature their sustainability efforts in their admissions despite contributing to emissions and smog at “higher rates than the typical commercial power plant.” 

Matt Ferland ’25, the student representative of the SLU Tree Committee, coordinates efforts to promote environmental activism and get students involved in climate decisions on campus.“All institutions have a greenwashing issue to some extent,” he said. “Here at SLU, students aren’t even kept in the loop enough to know, we need a huge shift in the culture around transparency and accountability to fill the knowledge gaps.”  

Ferland said that most people do not know how SLU is sustainable and environmentally-conscious, even with the advertisements. “The Seasons Committee, Environmental Task Force, and Campus Committee for Climate Neutrality are three such examples,” said Ferland. “Their meetings, accomplishments, and general existence remains a mystery to those inside and outside the field of study.”  

SLU’s aging boilers operate far below the pressure they were originally graded for, meaning they are not necessarily at risk of blowing up. However, if SLU wants to meet its sustainability goals and maintain its ability to heat campus effectively, the university likely has to address the heating plant.