MEA management, board offer good reasons to vote for change

MARY KVALHEIM/Spectrum

February 25, 2007

Why should you care about the upcoming Matanuska Electric Association board of directors election? Perhaps the most important reason is that we, as MEA members, have lost control of our co-op.

The management team at the utility has not changed in more than a decade. In that time, MEA has drifted away from its roots as a member-focused co-op. Instead, the current board has allowed MEA to become a utility that increasingly ignores its members and the best interests of Valley ratepayers.

As questions about how we generate our electricity become more important, the need for MEA members to determine the future course of our utility has never been more urgent. We have no power if members don't vote in the board election.

A recent example of MEA's disregard for the interests of its members is the announcement that it is going to build a 100 megawatt coal plant and 100 megawatt gas plant in the Valley, as opposed to continuing to purchase electricity from Chugach Electric or one of the other large Railbelt utilities that currently operates generating facilities.

You would think if our co-op were going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on such generating plants, and then ask us to pay for them over the next 25 years, that MEA members would have significant input into that decision. Well, that didn't happen.

Instead, MEA advertised the heck out of its recent public meetings only to announce that a decision had already been made. Where was all the advertising last year when the Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) MEA is using to justify its decision was being developed?

Actually, if you've been following MEA over the years, it's really no surprise that there was almost zero advertising to get member input in the IRP process.

But what may be even more disturbing is that MEA is now refusing to make public that IRP so that members can scrutinize the reasoning behind MEA's decision to put us ratepayers on the hook for hundreds of millions of dollars. Instead, only a ten-page &#8220executive summary” has been released to the public.

For many who attended the recent public meetings, the idea of building a coal plant in the midst of the fastest growing area of the state is quite unsettling. Even with federal pollution standards like the Clean Air Act in place, coal plants are major polluters, and are the most significant source of mercury pollution in the nation.

MEA's pronouncement that it would stage a co-op member &#8220advisory vote” to help them decide where (not if) they would locate the coal plant is also troubling. The vote is an after-the-fact attempt by MEA to pretend it cares about the public process. Worse yet, the advisory vote proposal is a divide-and-conquer strategy that will pit community against community, much like the recent prison issue did.

Possibly the biggest flaw in MEA's argument to build these power plants is its assertion that MEA can't continue to purchase electricity from Chugach Electric or other Railbelt utilities at a fair price.

At the recent public meetings, MEA management made it sound like Chugach Electric was some kind of evil empire poised to make life miserable for MEA members. Yet, no solid evidence was ever presented that explained why MEA just couldn't negotiate a better contract to purchase power when the current contract with Chugach expires in 2015.

Maybe a different management team could negotiate a better deal.

MEA's current plan could easily turn into an economic disaster for us co-op members. Construction cost overruns and a carbon tax regime that is definitely coming our way will both cost MEA consumers.

And if MEA can't secure a gas contract (which it has not done so far), you can bet its &#8220solution” will be to forget the gas and build 200 megawatts of coal instead.

As co-op members, MEA customers have far more control over how our electricity will be generated than most people Outside who buy power from big corporate utilities. Co-op members can choose to embrace efficiency, or like the rest of the world, look to renewable energy resources that don't rely on increasingly expensive and regulated fossil fuels. Our co-op can also choose to &#8220cooperate” with our sister utilities in the Railbelt.

MEA consumers can do much better. The current board majority has demonstrated it consents to inadequate public process and secret justifications. It's clearly time for a change.

We can elect three new candidates that, together with existing board members, can bring a whole new direction to our utility. Let's get serious about our utility and get back to our co-op roots.

Vote for Dan Tucker (Palmer), Katie Hurley (Wasilla), and Will Alteneder (Eagle River) and give the MEA board the opportunity to chart a new, transparent and truly cooperative course for our energy future.

Call all the candidates. Ask them questions. What are your concerns as an MEA member?

This vote is by district, so you only really have to call two candidates to make up your mind. It won't take much effort on your part when you consider what it will cost us all for years to come.

Mary Kvalheim represents Wasilla on the Mat-Su Borough Assembly.