June 10, 2007

By Russell Stigall

Frontiersman

RUSSELL STIGALL/Frontiersman For the second summer in a row Chris Capitan, blue hat, has traveled from Detroit to work with Palmer residents Logan Bean, straw hat, and Mitch Laird. The three work at Arctic Organics, Bean’s family farm. Here they help planted seeds stay warm with a cover that acts like a greenhouse.

MAT-SU - Acid emissions from coal-fired power plants can strip calcium and magnesium from farmers' soil. Will sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide from Matanuska Electric Association's proposed coal-fired plant acidify Valley farm land, strip calcium and magnesium from soil and mobilize heavy metal in wetlands, lakes and streams?

The answer depends are where farmers choose to farm.

River Bean and his family own and run the 15-acre Arctic Organics Farm. They've worked the land for almost 20 years.

Bean employs between eight and 16 workers depending on the season. He said the work, which lasts 11 months a year, is labor intensive.

“It's a hard way to make a living, but a satisfying one,” Bean said. Bean sells his vegetables by subscription to pay the bills. The farm currently can supply about 150 subscriptions.

Bean's farm is located in the calcium and magnesium rich zone near the Matanuska River.

Bean said he is worried that the coal plant's sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide could change the chemistry of his soil, could lower the Ph and add mercury and lead.

“MEA says its proposed plant is clean coal. But how clean is it?” Bean asked. “It is an awful situation to begin to have any kinds of heavy metals in the soils,” Bean said. “They are there forever.”

The Valley's strong winds bring free nutrients to farmers in the form of glacial flour from the Knik and Matanuska Glaciers, according to Mark Clark, Senior Soil Scientist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture. This constant re-supply of calcium and magnesium keeps the Ph level higher, baser, in the soil around Palmer and down the Matanuska River.

The land east of Wasilla and west of the Matanuska River benefit from this free soil conditioner, Clark said. However, farmers on Lazy Mountain are just outside this zone and many must condition their soil with lime. This practice will only have to increase with the added acids from MEA's coal plant, Clark said.

The uniqueness of the Valley's soil makeup is all the more valuable, said Arthur Keyes, a farmer on the Springer Loop System.

“This huge state has a small postage stamp that we can farm,” Keyes said.

Keyes said he is concerned with what will happen to his farm land if a coal plant goes in somewhere in the Valley. He said he is worried because MEA has not talked with farmers about what could happen.

“I think that is the biggest problem is they aren't getting enough information out, they are playing their cards close to their chest,” Keyes said. “They need to put the information out there and not be scared.”

Keyes owns a 3-acres farm with is wife. They moved to the Valley and took over the family operation in 2001. Keyes, a life-long Alaskan, also works in the produce department at Carrs in Palmer.

The Keyes family farm grows greenhouse cucumbers and tomatoes and squash and corn in the field.

Keyes is a conventional farmer, not an organic farmer, and uses conventional fertilizers on his crops. However, because Keyes farms in the good soil around Palmer, he does not have to add lime to neutralize the acidic Ph typical in Alaskan soils.

Keyes said in general a coal plant does not sound like a good idea.

“I understand why they want coal,” Keyes said. “Coal is the energy here, like a 300 year supply in Alaska. And we obviously need power, but at what cost?”

Keyes said he was frustrated that MEA did not ask Valley residents what kind of power generation the co-op should build.

He said he would rather the co-op talked to its member-owners earlier in the process.

“And not say ‘by the way, where do you want it?'” he said.

In some respect however the concerns of Keyes and Bean though may be premature.

The Department of Agriculture's Mark Clark said farmers west of the Matanuska River and east of Wasilla may not have to worry much about the acid emitted from MEA's coal plant.

Because Palmer's farms are re-supplied with base compounds they will feel less the effects of the sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide, Clark said. Without this re-supply, though, rain leaches from soil calcium and magnesium, which crops use to build cell walls.

The acidic soil would also mobilize heavy metals like mercury, lead and iron which can migrate into the food supply through root crops, berries and some fish.

“The acid/base balance controls so many biochemical reactions on the planet,” Clark said. As a scientist, Clark said, the importance of Ph was one of the first things he learned.

Even with hundreds of tons of SO2 and NOx deposited on Palmer farms, Clark said, the glacial winds, which replenish base compounds, will minimize effects of acid deposition. Farms, gardens, wetlands, lakes and forests west of Wasilla and on Lazy Mountain, however, will not be so lucky.

Alaska's soil is typically much more acidic than Palmer's. This is made obvious by the stunted coniferous forests near Houston and Talkeetna.

With soil productivity already so low, even small changes in Ph brought by acid deposition could effect big change, Clark said.

Contact Russell Stigall at 352-2267 or russell.stigall@frontiersman.com