Making ice in aging 'Barn' challenging, expensive

News that the ice plant in “The Barn” — the city’s oldest hockey arena — had leaked as much as 5,000 pounds of R-22 refrigerant came as a shock to Cloquet city officials earlier this month.

So did the price tag.

At $10 a pound, the cost to replace 5,000 pounds of R-22 is $50,000. Councilors balked at paying that kind of bill without more information at their Oct. 1 meeting, and requested a special meeting with area hockey officials to find out more about the cooling system itself, use of the rink and any available alternatives.

During that special meeting Tuesday, Oct. 8, they learned there weren’t really any viable alternatives to getting The Barn back up and running if the city wanted to honor all its commitments to the various hockey programs. There are too many teams to fit all the ice time into Northwoods Credit Union Arena, and Carlton’s hockey arena is already booked up for the season. The city — which officially took over ownership of the arenas earlier this year — was in a tough spot.

At the end of the meeting, after many questions and worries about cost, the council voted unanimously to approve the purchase of 5,000 pounds of R-22. There was lots of talk about a long-term fix for both ice plants (at The Barn and Northwoods), what that would cost (close to $3 million is one estimate) and how the city would pay for that. Grants are a possibility, as is another half-cent sales tax, but neither of those options is a sure thing and neither could happen within a year or two and certainly not before this hockey season.

“I don’t know what choice we have,” said Ward 1 councilor Bunn Carlson, who motioned to approve the expenditure.

The city has known for several years that it will need to replace the ice plants, because R-22 will not be manufactured in the U.S. after this year, essentially because it is bad for the ozone layer. Fortunately for the city of Cloquet, people have been stockpiling the refrigerant, and supplies are good (for now) because fewer places are using it.

It’s the economy

Hockey brings many people into Cloquet, said Cloquet Area Hockey Association (CAHA) president Don Gentilini, between high school and junior hockey games and youth hockey tournaments, adding that a study of the economic impact of just the Minnesota Wilderness junior hockey team puts it in the millions of dollars, not counting all the families who travel here for a dozen or more tournaments.

And then there are the local players and families that would be affected if the facility goes down.

Cloquet rink manager Justin Harriman told councilors that they run 20 youth teams, four high school teams and a junior hockey team out of the Cloquet facilities. There are also men’s and at least one women’s team that practice there.

“Even with both rinks, we still need to rent ice at other places,” Harriman said, explaining that the girls and boys high school teams take turns practicing every other week during the season at The Barn and Northwoods from roughly 3:45 to 6:30 p.m. High school captains’ practices started last week, and the Wilderness hosted its first home games this past weekend.

For now, those teams will play exclusively at Northwoods.

After the meeting and council approval, Gartner Refrigeration president and co-owner Jay Koning — who has worked on both arenas for close to 20 years — said the timeline for getting The Barn back online will depend on what they discover over the next two days. If there are no other leaks, he said, they could freeze ice in 12-24 hours. But they are doing extra testing “to be extra sure,” so don’t count on ice before next week, and that’s only if there are no more leaks.

Historic leak

The fact that there were leaks was not a surprise; it was the extent of the leaks that no one expected.

Harriman said they knew there was a problem last year in February, after the weather started getting a little warmer again, so they shut down The Barn on the last day of the high school season instead of keeping it open another month like they usually would.

Koning said there are miles of pipe running under the floor — buried in sand — in the older hockey arena.

A walk through the nearly 50-year-old building Tuesday showed narrow pipes at both the north and south ends of the rink exposed, dug out by arena staff so they could check the welds going into the larger manifold (or header) pipes that carry the coolant from the ice plant. Other places in the sand sported tiny pink flags, each one marking a spot home to at least a pinpoint leak at some time recently.

“We expect to fix some small leaks every summer because of the age of the system and the pressure [of the gas],” Gentilini said. “But this summer was worse.”

Over the spring and summer, Gartner and arena staff tested for leaks and found 45, Koning said, including a large one in the ice plant itself. That was unusual, he said, explaining that it was the last place he looked because they’d never lost coolant from the ice plant before, only the floor and surrounding pipes.

“We probably lost 1,500 pounds that way,” Koning said.

The year before they found close to 25 leaks, but for five years before that, they hadn’t had to put any additional R-22 into the ice plant at The Barn.

The type of cooling system — a direct system that sends the R-22 directly under the ice — used in Cloquet made the problem worse, because it uses more refrigerant. Many more modern rinks, such as the Duluth Heritage Sports Center, use an indirect system, in which the cooling agent stays in the mechanical room and a different liquid (the Heritage uses brine) is pushed through the floor pipes, cooling the ice before winding back to the cooling tower and compressors in the mechanical room.

When councilors sought assurances that there wouldn’t be new leaks, Koning and the others couldn’t promise. They were optimistic because of all the work they’ve done to try to find any leaks. Still, it’s an old system, said Harriman.

“The reality is without replacing the whole setup — consultants recommend one ice plant to serve both arenas — it’s bubble gum and rubber bands,” Harriman said.

All four hockey arenas in Carlton County (Carlton, Moose Lake and the two in Cloquet) have ice plants that use R-22 refrigerant to make the arena floor cold enough to freeze water for an ice sheet. Currently, there are no replacements available that would work in exactly the same kind of cooling system.