Board members, ratepayers in dark over coal-plant ballot

May 8, 2007

By Russell Stigall/Frontiersman

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MAT-SU - A dearth of information puts a question

mark behind Matanuska Electric Association's two public meetings.

MEA says public input from two meetings in May will help decide where the co-op builds two new electric generators, a 100 megawatt coal-fired plant and a 100 megawatt gas-fired plant.

MEA's proposed coal plant has met opposition from Valley groups like Jim Sykes' Utility Watch and MEA Ratepayers Alliance.

The time and location of the meetings can be found on the co-op's Web site at www.mea.coop. However, the public relations staff have left off when and how members will vote for the site and what members can expect to learn if they attend.

Lee Jordan, MEA board president, said during a phone interview Monday that a brochure with a ballot will be mailed out to MEA members. But he did not know if it would be done so as to allow voting at the public meetings or if it would take place after the meetings. He deferred to MEA spokespersons Lorali Carter and Tuckerman Babcock for answers.

However, multiple attempts over several days to contact Babcock and Carter proved futile, and phone messages were not answered.

MEA board member Lois Lester said she, too, has not heard how the site selection meetings will proceed.

“I have absolutely no idea,” Lester said.

Lester said she receives her board meeting agenda on Thursday or Friday before the monthly Monday meetings. MEA will have its next board meeting on Monday.

MEA legal counsel Jim Walker and MEA spokesperson Lorali Carter spoke on the subject of the public meetings at the May 1 Mat-Su Borough Assembly meeting. Carter said the co-op would have information on the potential sites by the middle of this week - less than a week before the first public meeting on May 19.

Carter said that the meetings on May 19 and May 24 will be for public comment, a process she and Walker said is similar to the borough's medium-security prison site selection. After the site has been selected, Carter said, MEA will hold a community meeting to educate residents near the selected area.

Not everyone was convinced by the description of the process. Utility Watch's Sykes said Carter and Walker were “either misrepresenting MEA or lying.”

Assembly member Tom Kluberton also took exception to the portrayal of MEA's site-selection process as transparent and

public.

“I think it is a mistake to go around telling people you are going to base your public process on the borough's process with the prison,” Kluberton said. “After you already select a site then you go around talking with communities about how glad they are they don't have the power plant there.”

Carter said the borough's process is just a model for MEA's process.

“We have the benefit of hindsight,” Carter said.

Kluberton said if MEA officials really wanted to copy the borough's prison site-selection process, they would talk with each potential site's community then conduct the vote.

“[MEA is] not doing a very convincing job of conducting a public opinion program,” Kluberton said. “They're acting like it's a slam dunk. I would like to see them announce their sites and take their show on the road and hold a public meeting in each of those areas and take the public temperature.”

Kluberton said he hasn't heard much opposition to MEA's site selection process. But he said he predicts a response if MEA proceeds as is.

“I have a funny feeling the phone will start ringing loud and clear,” Kluberton said.

Kluberton said MEA's site-selection process will pit community against community.

“If I vote for over there, it won't be in my neighborhood,”

Kluberton said.

Assembly member Cindy Bettine said the more populated areas in MEA's service area would be able to vote the industrial power plant into another community.

“To me, that seems pretty goofy,” Bettine said. “Do people in Eagle River really care about people in Knik-Goose Bay or Big Lake? And I don't know how they will be very informed voters if they don't know what the options are, as far as energy.”

Because of this, Bettine said one of the options on the MEA site-selection ballot should be to put the coal plant no-where.

“Here's your five location options or none of the above,” Bettine said.

Walker, MEA's legal counsel, said he doesn't think “none of the above” will be a ballot option. He said all five areas MEA is looking at are suitable for the two electric generators.

“MEA is neutral,” Walker said. “It is up to our membership to vote on what their preference is.”

Carter explained, though, that balloting is more advisory in nature. She said the location that members vote to approve will be what MEA considers its most favorable site. MEA will then hire consultants to determine if the site will suffice for MEA's needs.

If MEA consultants rule out voters' favorite site, they will move on to the next most popular site.

The areas MEA can look at are limited by access to existing rail lines and natural gas pipelines and need to be 150-acre to 600-acre parcels.

“We want to have substantial buffering around our plant from our neighbors,” Walker said.

MEA has also limited the possible sites to a triangle ranging from “Houston, then south to Big Lake, then proceeding southeast to Eklutna, then northeast to Sutton, and then west back to the beginning point at Houston,” according to MEA's Web site.

Assembly member Mary Kvalheim asked Walker if the co-op's members will know the full cost of the coal facility before they vote on its home.

“No,” Walker said.

“Then how will we vote rationally?” Kvalheim said. “I'd be hesitant to vote if I didn't know the costs.”

Pete Houston, president of MEA Ratepayers Alliance said his organization would like the co-op to stop the meeting process and put the project

on hold.

“They need to stop this whole process until member-owners are adequately informed in order to responsibly participate,” Houston said.

The two days of meetings will take place at the Pioneer Peak Elementary School, Midnight Sun Learning Center, Eagle River High School, 10 a.m. to noon, May 19, and 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. May 24.

Contact Russell Stigall at

352-2267 or russell.stigall@

frontiersman.com