Kudos to Sen. Green …

As winter looms ever closer and Valley commuters get their first taste of the long, dark drive that will become a part of everyday life, it's nice to know that help is on the way.

Ninety-six light poles are being erected across the Palmer Hay Flats, between Nelson Road and the Matanuska River Bridge, a three-mile stretch of road.

As any night or winter driver will tell you, it can be frightening to encounter a darting moose along this stretch, the fastest straightaway along the road to Anchorage.

It has taken years for state and local agencies to finally work out the details of getting lights put up along this dark and dangerous stretch -- one of the most moose-vehicle accident prone stretches of highway in Alaska -- but finally there is light at the end of the tunnel. The project is slated to wrap by Dec. 15.

That's just in time for the long nighttime hours between January and May -- the time wildlife biologists say is when virtually all moose-vehicle collisions happen on the Flats.

The state Department of Transportation (DOT), along with the Mat-Su Borough and Matanuska Electric Association (MEA), agreed to a unique partnership in which the DOT staff agreed to install the lights if the borough agreed to maintain them and MEA agreed to provide power.

The partnership was a go until MEA officials said Regulatory Commission of Alaska personnel said the cooperative was no longer able to use utility money to participate in community activities, at which point MEA withdrew its support.

In a moment of heroism, Sen. Lyda Green, R-Mat-Su, took a stand on the issue, supporting the utility's deregulation if regulation would mean MEA could no longer contribute to local charities.

Green had worked in 1998 to help secure $850,000 in funding for the program from the Legislature, and has long been a champion of the project. When MEA threatened to put the project on the skids, Green issued a letter in support of deregulation, in hopes it would prod the project forward.

Now the project is under way, with construction crews working night and day to prepare for the installation of those vital lights.

We appreciate and applaud Green's actions in support of making the drive across the Palmer Hay Flats a brighter, safer one for people heading to and from our Valley.