Challenges and joys of life in the Valley

Living in the Mat-Su has its challenges. Windstorms blow us around day in and day out, bitter cold made even worse by ceaseless winds. And now brush fires, unheard of in the winter, strike — again, fueled by the whipping winds into a fast moving, burning fury. It’s a sad result of a very dry winter with little or no snow cover, so far.

Yet, we continue to live here, and the reasons are many. I like living here because it’s alive with challenges. It still has small-town charms, yet is growing rapidly by leaps and bounds. It is a good place to settle down and raise a family, or to come up from elsewhere to retire and seek new ways to live in the later years of life. The Valley offers many ways to live life to its fullest.

We are lucky that we can run into our elected leadership at the local store or family restaurant and share a cup of coffee or a joke or two with ease. That is something very unique and rare in modern times. It’s a very good and human thing to have in the face of the digital age of gadgets and gizmos that want to take away from that and replace it with tweets and other such nonsense.

Then there are the future challenges this Valley must face up to. A rail line to the fledgling Port MacKenzie is one. It would be vital addition to make it into a thriving point of logistics to the Interior and shipping beyond our shores.

Our infrastructure needs to be developed for this and many other projects in the region to grow properly. More roads and bridges must be constructed and maintained as growth in the Valley continues. That does not mean to turn this wonderful place into an industrial nightmare. It must be done within reason and with the needs of all involved in mind, balanced with the needs of our unique environment that makes Alaska so blessed to live in. We must make it Alaska as only Alaskans can do it best.

More schools must be built as part of a public school system that really works — a fully funded one that doesn’t get shafted each election year by underfunding or no funding at all. That might sound like a tall order. I believe it can be done reasonably and responsibly in order to make this happen and attract only the best teachers and support staff for that most vital of missions. This is turning the education of our children into well-balanced and truly informed adulthood and people eager to make their contributions to society.

Power, as in power generation systems to provide for all of these projects and visions to the future is badly needed. These are not small projects, but rather are large ones to provide power for decades to come. The need to act is now.

There are a variety of ways to generate such power on a large scale. Hydroelectric, wind, solar, tidal, natural gas and geothermal power generation are most of the choices available out there right now. One just won’t do it. It will have to be a combination of two or more, perhaps all, in order to make the grade. None is perfect. One is mired in controversy that has been going on now for decades and may never be built, the Susitna dam project. The others are fairly new to the scene and have a few bugs to work out.

The wind farm on Fire Island is proof that it can be done and done well. Wind farms in the Valley? Yes, by all means build them. We have more than enough wind for that as the events of recent days prove. Natural gas? It is here underneath us. It can be extracted and used here.

The others like solar power, tidal and geothermal have problems that may or may not work out for our needs. More research is in order to determine the best one to uses.

What about coal? This is a thorny one for me. While it was used here in the past, it was done on a very small scale with a population a fraction of what it is today. Despite some claims, it does not burn clean. The other issues with what to do with its byproduct, coke and the emissions it produces — not to mention the controversies surrounding just trying to mine the stuff on a large scale — are major problems we should avoid. That is why it is off my list. We should be looking for clean ways to meet the challenges of our future power needs. Coal isn’t one of them.

Now for the hard parts — planning and execution. Without good planning for the future none of these ideas will ever become a reality. We have seen the results of bad planning, sometimes to the point of embarrassment. Case in point: a certain custom-built ferry. We can’t just talk about these things to death. We must act on them. We must pick up that shovel or pick and dig.

The challenges of living in the present and those of the future are exciting ones. We are lucky to live here on the ground floor of what is to come. We as Alaskans are more than up to meeting them all. At least, that is my fondest hope and dream for this land that I love with all my heart. We can meet those challenges head on. I love a good challenge, don’t you?

Wasilla resident Daniel D. Grota retired from the U.S. Army after more than 21 years of service.