PALMER -- The Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly postponed action Tuesday on a proposed law that would require a borough permit to build power plants.
The proposal follows the selection by Matanuska Electric Association of a site along the Glenn Highway south of Palmer for a 100-megawatt, coal-fired generation plant and another fired by natural gas.
The proposed borough law would apply to any power generation project 50 megawatts or greater. The borough planning commission July 12 voted 4-3 to send the ordinance to the assembly.
By the end of night Tuesday, Assemblywoman Michelle Church said she felt ready to vote, but the Assembly put off action until Aug. 28. It also scheduled a five-hour work session beforehand with regulators, consultants and other power-generation experts.
The ordinance drew nearly two hours of testimony from MEA ratepayers, business owners, concerned citizens, MEA board members and coal industry representatives. They aired opinions both for and against the ordinance.
Noting the borough has no deadline for approving a permit application and that the ordinance was hastily put together, MEA board member Larry DeVilbiss urged the Assembly not to pass the ordinance and to work with the utility.
Most of what the ordinance requires will duplicate requirements of federal and state government regulators, said Charlie Boddy, Usibelli Coal Mine vice president for government relations.
"It's asinine," Boddy said. "It's a waste of money."
MEA senior counsel Jim Walker said he was willing to bet that none of the Assembly members fully understood the ordinance before them.
Roger Purcell, a Houston-area business owner, said he saw the ordinance as a threat to development and likely to scare off businesses worried about excessive regulation.
Two-thirds of the 39 people who spoke Tuesday supported the ordinance. Most of those also spoke against building the coal-fired generation plant and cited pollution concerns and the lack of a public process in the MEA directors' decision to build. MEA plans to have the coal-fired plant online by 2015, when its contract for power with Chugach Electric Association expires.
MEA officials have said the plant will employ clean-coal technology and that pollution concerns are overblown. They have also said they welcome public input but leave the decisions on how best to generate power up to experts.
Darin Markwardt spoke in favor of the ordinance. He said he sees it as a step toward making the Valley a leader in energy planning policy.
Michael Janecek, a frequent critic of the coal-fired plant, voiced support for the ordinance. Janecek said he was "absolutely amazed" that the utility could argue, as it had in past meetings, that the ordinance was being railroaded through the approval process. In his view, MEA solicited little public input on its power generation plans.
Janecek urged the Assembly to "pass this ordinance for the protection of borough residents from any run-amok electrical utility."
Find reporter Andrew Wellner online at adn.com/contact/awellner or call him at 907-352-6710.
