Looking back on 2014 in Mat-Su Borough news

Part I

MAT-SU — At the start of each new year, the Frontiersman likes to take some time to look back at the big events that shaped our community during the past 12 months.

We have gone through a year’s worth of newspapers and come up with a list of the events from 2014 we think will have a lasting impact on Mat-Su.

Valley students do great things

The year started with the Valley’s only marching band — Colony High School — heading to Pasadena, California, to march in the Tournament of Roses Parade on New Year’s Day. The trip was the culmination of a huge fundraising effort and the biggest accomplishment of the band’s short history. Meanwhile, in March, Valley teams continued their winning streak in the statewide Science Olympiad. There seems to be little other schools can do to stop Teeland Middle School and Mat-Su Career and Technical High School.

Construction

If you were caught in road construction this summer and thought, in your frustration, that this had to be some kind of a record-breaking year for traffic cones, you might be right. The Valley underwent a construction boom unprecedented in recent memory with major projects on the Parks Highway, Vine Road, the Seldon Road/Lucille Street Intersection, Bogard Road and many, many others. And that’s just the roads. The Mat-Su Borough cut the ribbon on two schools — Mat-Su Day School and Valley Pathways — this year and broke ground on a high school — Joe Redington Sr. Jr./Sr. High School off of Knik-Goose Bay Road — at the same time it is renovating numerous other schools, expanding Career Tech High School and planning for the construction of more than one elementary school. Also, the long-planned Point MacKenzie Rail Spur continued apace this year. With numerous projects still in the design phase, orange cone season seems poised to be just as busy next year.

MEA’s power trip

The saga of the Eklutna Generation Station began nearly a decade ago, with a 2007 vote by the Matanuska Electric Association to stop buying power from Chugach Electric Association. Now, seven years on, MEA says it is just months away from flipping the switch on the massive engines that will use natural gas to generate electricity to its customers from Eagle River to Talkeetna. The coop says it will not meet the deadline set way back in 2007 — when Jan. 1, 2015, rolls around MEA will still be buying power from Chugach. But 2014 was a major milestone on the road to self-sufficiency. The smoke stacks went up. The generators arrived, were wired in and tested. And a patch of what was once wilderness was transformed into a power station. Along the way the utility has tangled with the city of Wasilla over power lines and had to increase rates to meet growing costs. But getting into the generation game is a huge milestone for the utility, one it has marked with much fanfare.

The Knik Arm Crossing

Just what, exactly, it will all mean is still shaking out, but 2014 saw huge changes to the project that aims to bridge Knik Arm, connecting Anchorage and Point MacKenzie. During its session this year, the Legislature effectively dissolved the group that had previously spearheading the project. The Knik Arm Bridge and Toll Authority still exists but the power to raise funds to build the bridge and to actually construct it now rests with the Alaska Department of Transportation and Public Facilities. Most of KABATA’s staff has moved on and its board of directors seems likely to disappear, or at least go dormant until needed to oversee the levying of tolls on the bridge. Meanwhile, plunging oil prices in recent months seems to have soured state government on mega projects. The bridge was one of many such projects that newly elected Governor Bill Walker ordered officials to stop spending money on last week. The Mat-Su Borough still supports it, though. The span is high on its list of priorities for 2015, which were officially laid out this month.

Susitna-Watana Dam

Had you asked about the dam just a few months ago we would have said that 2014 was the year we moved closest to realizing the goal of having half of Alaska’s electricity come from renewable sources. Tens of millions of dollars were spent on the project over the summer. But, with oil prices on a sharp decline, everyone seems to be backing away from the multi-billion-dollar dam that was first conceived decades ago. The same aversion to mega projects that seems to have cast a shadow over the Knik Arm bridge may very likely have killed the dam.

Central Monofill Services

The fight over a decommissioned gravel pit off of the Glenn Highway just outside of Palmer occupied a lot of space in our pages in 2013 but it came back with a vengeance in 2014. A new permit submitted in February has led to a renewed series of debates and letters to the editor. On one side, Central Monofill Services says it can safely dispose of construction debris in the pit. It says its operation would create jobs and divert tons of waste from municipal landfills. On the other side, neighbors say that the erstwhile gravel pit already punctured an aquifer there and as a result, could harm water quality and property values. The fight has yet to reach a conclusion. Though the permit application was shot down at the Mat-Su Borough Planning Commission, the company still has other options to pursue before the project is completely dead.

Ferry

The story of the M/V Susitna car ferry — which was envisioned as a link between Anchorage and Point MacKenzie — is unique on this list. It’s news not because something big happened this year, but rather because nothing happened to move the ferry closer to finding a forever home. And that’s kind of the problem. For more than a year, the Mat-Su Borough has unsuccessfully attempted to get rid of the vessel, which was built as a military prototype in Ketchikan. This year has been spent mostly trying to figure out exactly how many millions in federal grants the borough will have to repay because it did not set up a ferry service as required under the terms of the grants. In August, the feds made it official, sending the borough a letter demanding repayment of $12.5 million in funds the borough has already spent. Currently, the borough is trying to negotiate for a smaller bill.

Flooding

Chronic flooding along the Matanuska River this year prompted the Mat-Su Borough to apply to a federal program to buy out properties affected by the changing course of the braided river. The process has been contentious. A group of homeowners in Butte raised funds to try and repair a dike and one homeowner in particular wound up in court repeatedly for trying to build structures to hold back the water without a permit. Bruce Derstine was found guilty of the infractions in October, during a hearing in which the judge urged him and the borough to work together. Meanwhile, a few miles downstream in Sutton, at least one septic tank went into the river but the man who owned it says he intends to stay in his home.

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.