Author well-credentialed

May 27, 2007

By Russell Stigall

Frontiersman

MAT-SU - Opponents of Matanuska Electric Association's plan to build power plants in the Valley say the cooperative has some questions to answer about the proposal.

MEA, on the other hand, has been disinclined to answer questions about the plan.

Board of directors president Lee Jordan, at the May 14 board meeting, offered a

possible explanation.

&#8220The people who question what we're doing … I question their credentials. I don't see the degrees after their names, the initials after their names,” he said.

MEA Ratepayers Alliance and Utility Watch, two MEA opposition groups, rolled out a report last week they say should be taken seriously. Written by utility consultant Mark Foster, of Mark A. Foster and Associates, the report questions MEA's financial and environmental assertions about the coal-fired power plant the co-op hopes to build.

Foster said he has found holes in MEA's plans that could result in millions of

dollars of extra costs to MEA member-owners.

But who is Mark Foster, and why should he be taken seriously?

Foster earned the letters after his name from the civil engineering department at Stanford University. APUC is another set of initials pertinent to Foster. He served three years on the Alaska Public Utilities Commission, the precursor to the Regulatory Commission of Alaska.

Foster was born in Fairbanks, part of a long line of Alaskans. His grandfather was a miner in the Brooks Range.

While earning his engineering degree at Stanford, Foster wrote a thesis on the economics of the Susitna Hydroelectric Project.

After graduation, he returned to Alaska and has since considered it home.

Foster worked for the city of Fairbanks as a municipal engineer at the Chena Five coal power plant. While at Chena, Foster helped create a life-extension plan and a $5 million revenue bond for coal-handling and ash-handling improvements for the old coal burner.

He served on the Alaska Public Utilities Commission from 1990 to 1993.

After retiring from the commission, Foster started Mark A. Foster and Associates. Since then, Foster has worked with the Alaska Energy Authority on an economic analysis of coal-bed methane, worked with the Railbelt Independent Power Producers on market analysis, made an assessment of the potential of end-use efficiency and renewable energy in the Railbelt for the National Wildlife Federation, made project cost benchmarks for the Denali Commission and made cost benchmarks for the state of Alaska legislative budget and audit transportation project.

Foster worked with Northern Economics as the primary author of the Rural Energy Plan for the Alaska Energy Authority.

He is currently on the board of Alaska Power and Telephone. AP and T has both telephone and hydroelectric projects in Southeast Alaska and in Guatemala.

Foster has also done work for the

United Nations in renewable energy

and information and communications technology.

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