MEA advances power-line route discussion

WASILLA — Matanuska Electric Association has issued a preliminary recommendation on the preferred route to thread high-voltage power lines through the city of Wasilla.

Two new figures come after what officials say was an exhaustive analysis of 440 potential alternative routes. Previous studies and public appearances had seemed to point toward a route along what is known as the “Gully” corridor as having the lowest potential impact and cost between the Lazelle and Herning substations, through some of the most densely populated portions of Wasilla.

Officials say the creation of a large loop of transmission lines will improve reliability by allowing MEA officials to isolate various portions of the electrical line in the event of a fault. They’ve been looking for a way to increase capacity and connect the two substations since the city planning commission voted that any transmission lines along the Parks Highway would have to be buried to receive permits. MEA officials have said burying the high voltage lines is prohibitively expensive and unsafe.

Instead of the Gully Corridor, a consultant instead issued a preliminary recommendation for a route along the Theater Corridor, named for its proximity to Valley Cinema. The route would roughly follow Brenda Avenue, cross the Alaska Railroad three times, run along Glenwood Avenue, then turn to meet the Herning Substation. The route roughly parallels MEA’s preferred Parks Highway route, but instead passes through several subdivisions to the south of the highway.

A presentation in April put the cost of the Gully Corridor at between $10.2 million and $11.2 million, and said the route would affect as many as 67 parcels and 34 homes. The latest analysis lowers the bottom range of that number to roughly $8 million, according to the presentation.

However, when assessed using a system assigning points based on whether the lines would impact panoramic views available to property owners, whether the presence of lines would cause major impacts to property owners and how close the power lines were to the centerlines of traffic corridors, the Theater Corridor route emerged as a front-runner, both in terms of impact and cost, according to an MEA Power point presentation.

That route is known by the designation T-17-E1-3R. Another possible recommendations include T24-E1-3R which would cross the Alaska Railroad once, then run to the area of Valley Side Circle before doglegging North at Althea Street and running into the Herning Substation. A third recommendation is known as the modified T24 route, which follows roughly the same route as T24-E1-3R.

Those were three of six routes presented as the top finalists from the point-scoring process, according to an MEA Powerpoint slide.

The preliminary recommendation now awaits final input and comments from the city, said MEA spokeswoman Julie Estey. Officials presented the top five routes at the July 28 Planning Commission meeting. Reviews were largely positive, Estey said.

“I think we found a process that they were happy with,” she said. “They made comments about how thorough we were. They weren’t in a position to give us comments.”

The next step in the process will entail the cooperative’s submission of two or three final routes, and the use of the public process to identify the route with the least impact, Estey said.

“That’s how we will be moving forward,” she said.

The cooperative will then issue a decisional document to the borough, which will go up for a 30-day public comment period. Officials would then effectively seek conditional use permits for two or three different routes. Those results would then go back to the city planning commission in November or December.

The Powerpoint presentation to the Wasilla planning commission is online at bit.ly/1IPDUTY.

Contact Brian O’Connor at 352-2269, brian.oconnor@frontiersman.com, or on Twitter @reporterbriano.