Capital projects should benefit Alaskans

Knik Arm Bridge, Pebble Mine and Susitna-Watana Hydroelectric Project are three projects that will have profound impacts on Alaska, Alaskans and our way of life; however, they are not for us, are none of our business and that is how they are related.

Knik Arm Bridge

Knik Arm Bridge is not a bridge to nowhere and it is not a bridge to potential bedrooms at Point MacKenzie, nor is it a solution to ease commuter traffic from the Valley. This is the product of years of political positioning by our U.S. Congressional delegation in Washington, D.C. That is why it is federally funded and controlled.

It is quite obvious a bridge would be the beginning of extending road access to the Beluga Coal Fields, Lake Clark National Park, Katmai National Park, McNeal River, Lake Iliamna, Pebble Mine, Bristol Bay, Aniakchak Crater, Cold Bay, Dillingham, King Salmon and the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta (all of western Alaska).

Investment banks, global construction companies and the unions need this like the military industrial complex needs war. Princess, Holland America and West Tours all want new parks to drive buses to (the clamor for a south side Denali Visitor Center and new road is about them building more ships) and for them, so is the Knik Arm Bridge.

A bridge to actually secure the needs of and save the lives of Alaskans would be across Turnagain Arm from Potters Marsh to Hope.

Pebble Mine

Pebble is another mega project that, if developed, will significantly impact Alaskans.

It is also none of our business.

International mining companies and their investors are the sole benefactors. Most likely, it will never be developed, but for the next 20 to 40 years, investors will throw money at it while brokers of that investment make house and car payments, take their families on vacations and invest their hard-earned money in things they believe in. Eventually, the shares in the mine will all be sold.

If it is developed, a handful of Bristol Bay/Iliamna residents will be employed for the duration of their working careers and some of the gold will make it into the hands of jewelers, but most will be stored and borrowed against for a few generations. Very few Alaskans of the next couple of generations will benefit significantly from the development of Pebble Mine.

Susitna-Watana Hydroelectric Project

Other than us paying for it, this project is none of our business either. Out-of-state investors, construction companies and unions will be the primary benefactors.

This is another political maneuver conducted a long time ago and resurrected by our congressmen as soon as it seemed we had a compliant state administration.

We (Alaskans) do not need this dam. We own more natural gas than any other state in the country and more than many entire countries. Obviously, the money the state intends to spend on the Susitna dam should be spent getting our gas to generators and transmission lines out into the river corridors (rural towns). Alaska has more possible ways to generate electricity than almost any place on earth and we do not need to resort to damming our major rivers to do it.

This dam is a ridiculous direction to take state money that's needed for energy. Those of us who live here do so for a lot of reasons, from the pure esthetic of living in a relatively undeveloped place all the way to living in a place that offers self-sustaining people economic opportunity. Many of us are from here, have stayed and raised families, and want what was available to us to remain available to our children and their children.

Change of some kind is inevitable, and in many cases it is a very good thing; however, tempering that change with a degree of caution and conservation is life-sustaining and a wise move.

Apparently, at one point in discussions about the dam, Governor Parnell said, "We need to either go big or go home."

Well, I am home and I say go smaller on a wide scale. In river water, turbines can be placed in every stream where the road or railroad crosses it. Every village or town in Alaska should be turning refuse and driftwood into electricity in a bio-fuel boiler/generator. If the state needs to have a large project, an in-state gas line from Prudhoe to Valdez and local markets would be a good use of our resources and time.

Or, just build a dam on the Nushagak to provide power to Western Alaska - the Pebble gold under the new lake is not ours anyway.

Rob Holt lives in Talkeenta.