Critic asks state to scrutinize MEA's behavior
After 12 years, Wasilla voters will put a man in charge
BALLOTS IN MAIL: Utility asks if it should build plant or keep buying electricity.
Published: July 6, 2007
Last Modified: July 13, 2007 at 02:20 AM
WASILLA -- Matanuska Electric Association is asking its 41,812 member-owners to make the call: Build power generation plants in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough or keep buying power from Chugach Electric Association.
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Sykes
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Members should receive advisory ballots in the mail today if they haven't already, MEA spokeswoman Lorali Carter said. Ballots are due back July 31 and will likely be counted Aug. 1.
MEA, which currently has only part ownership in the Eklutna hydroelectric plant, is moving ahead on plans to build two 100-megawatt power plants in the Mat-Su, one coal-fired and one powered with natural gas. The company hopes to have the plants running by 2015 and has estimated their cost at $350 million.
Board members on June 4 directed MEA general manager Wayne Carmony to negotiate for land on which to build the plants, beginning with a site at Mile 38 Glenn Highway, a gravel pit south of the highway near Palmer.
The utility was criticized in May when it asked members to select a site for the power plants but did not leave a space for members' suggestions. Carter in June said the utility doesn't plan to change its plans to use coal and natural gas as future fuel sources.
"We're confident that the membership is going to come back and say 'Yes, we want local generation,'" Carter said.
"It's a false choice again," said watchdog group UtilityWatch leader Jim Sykes. "Locally generated power would be OK if it was renewable or cheaper or cost-effective or clean, all of those things that it could be."
"You can't please everybody," Carter said.
SAVINGS DEBATE
Carter said that the new advisory ballot would have space for MEA members to write in their own power choice. Write-in notes will be hand-counted, Carter said. Other ballots will be processed in a ballot-counting machine.
"It doesn't really matter where the energy is generated. MEA is part of the grid. The closer the better, of course, but there's no real savings," Sykes said. "I hope what people put on it is ... 'We want clean, renewable, cheap power.' If local generation doesn't give you lower rates or clean power or renewable power, then it doesn't give you anything."
MEA claims there is a savings. If the utility buys power from Chugach Electric instead of generating its own, MEA estimates it will lose about $191 million over 30 years.
That figure is based on an April 2007 R.W. Beck analysis of a Chugach Electric generation plan that includes the cost of building a 118-megawatt remote coal plant by 2020. Chugach Electric Association spokesman Phil Steyer said in June the project was deemed too costly and shelved by Chugach managers.
Carter said the last advisory ballot cost about $60,000. This ballot is expected to cost a little more due to the recent rise in postal rates, Carter said. She said she expects MEA members will overwhelmingly select local generation.
Carter said MEA management sent out the advisory ballot this week in response to the Matanuska-Susitna Borough's release June 21 of a proposal to require electric utilities to get borough permission before building a power plant. The borough is taking public comments on that proposed law until July 11. Find out more at www.matsugov.us.
The Mat-Su Planning Commission plans a public hearing on the borough law July 12.
The Mat-Su Assembly has scheduled a July 17 public hearing on the measure.
"At a minimum, this new ordinance will add significant costs to the project and cause considerable time delays," Carter said in a press release Tuesday. "At worst, it could stop the project entirely."
Borough Manager John Duffy said the borough is not forcing MEA to choose between building a local power generation plant and buying power from Chugach, as an MEA brochure mailed out with ballots seems to indicate.
"I don't understand what the choice between buying power from Chugach or building their own power has to do with our ordinance," Duffy said.
Carter, by phone Tuesday, estimated complying with the borough law could cost the utility up to $1 million.
BOROUGH'S VIEW
If the borough measure passes, Carter said, MEA is prepared to challenge it in court. Either way, that's "wasted money," Carter said.
"It's not like people won't have a chance to weigh in. Both of our plants will meet all state and federal requirements," Carter said.
Duffy scoffed at the suggestion that money spent complying with the borough law would be wasted.
One million dollars is less than 1 percent of the power plant project cost, he said.
"What they're saying is that information related to our residents' health, the health of future generations, the effect on air quality and water quality, is not worth a million dollars. I think that is incredibly short-sighted," Duffy said.
State and federal agencies don't focus so closely on site impacts, neighborhood impacts, and the effects of development on public schools, housing markets and local roads in their review of utility power generation plans, Duffy said.
Carter said MEA hopes the borough will delay consideration of the ordinance until after the MEA advisory ballots are tallied.
Duffy said it's up to the Assembly whether or not to delay consideration of a law regulating power plants.
Find Daily News reporter Rindi White online at www.adn.com/contacts/rwhite or call 352-6709.
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