Anchorage Daily News

WASILLA -- The Matanuska Electric Association has identified about a dozen possible sites in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough for two huge new power plants, including a 100-megawatt, coal-fired plant it hopes to build in the next eight years, company officials said.

Tuckerman Babcock, a spokesman for the Palmer-based utility, said the sites for the coal and a companion 100-megawatt natural gas plant are within the Valley core area that stretches from Willow east to Sutton and south to Eklutna.

Possible sites include the old Matanuska town site near Palmer, various gravel pits, a spot off Buffalo Mine Road and a site along Church Road near Wasilla, he said Friday.

More information, including the specific locations, however, will not be available until two public meetings May 19 and May 24, company spokeswoman Lorali Carter said Friday.

Babcock said the utility was withholding the specific locations because some sites may be ruled out, and, in some cases, MEA has yet to talk to the landowner.

The utility also plans to hold a mail-in advisory vote in late May for its members to recommend locations, she said.

The utility needs 150-600 acres for the plants, depending on the location of the rail line for bringing in coal, Babcock said. Some properties might require a loop of rail line to be built, he said.

Cooperative officials have been talking about building the plants since a report last year by engineering firm CH2M Hill that recommended building the plants as the most economical way for the utility to meet its future power needs.

The utility held public meetings earlier this year on the proposed plants and solicited proposals for possible locations. Friday was the deadline for those proposals.

MEA also hired CH2M Hill to do an initial review of the sites, including proximity to rail and gas lines, surrounding development and environmental concerns such as wetlands, earthquake faults and prevailing wind patterns, he said.

The company will rule out obviously flawed sites such as those on top of an earthquake fault or surrounded by wetlands, Babcock said.

The plants would cost about $350 million to build, but MEA officials say they would allow the cooperative to generate cheaper power than it can purchase, as it does now, from Anchorage-based Chugach Electric Association.

Officials say the coal plant would also be a hedge against rising natural gas prices, the source of most of Chugach's power.

Chugach Electric Association supplies more than 99 percent of MEA power under a contract that expires Dec. 31, 2014. MEA wants the new plants on line by Jan. 1, 2015.

MEA officials have already encountered some opposition to their plans, particularly to the coal plant, which would be the largest of its kind in the state.

Although it would rely on a cleaner-burning technology known as circulating fluidized bed, it would still emit sulfur dioxide, carbon dioxide and mercury, among other emissions. The gas plants would emit carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide and nitrous dioxide, utility officials said.

Palmer-area resident Mark Masteller, in a recent opinion piece, argued that the company needed to look more seriously at renewable energy, such as solar, wind and tidal, and should push for getting natural gas from the North Slope to the Valley.

"With our Valley winds blowing the emissions, this plant will be in everyone's backyard," he wrote.

Babcock acknowledged that finding an acceptable spot in the growing borough for the power plants could be a challenge.

But he said there is no renewable energy source that can produce the amount of power Mat-Su residents need at a cost they can afford.

"It's not that we don't want to welcome alternatives with open arms," he said. "But we have one main responsibility: to make sure the lights come on when you flip the switch."

Babcock said the cooperative hopes to forward a list of recommended sites to its board of directors by June.

Reporter S.J. Komarnitsky can be reached at skomarnitsky@adn.com or 352-6714.