Planning commission: Bury the lines

WASILLA — Though the saga is far from over, Matanuska Electric Association finally managed to finally get a firm answer out of the Wasilla Planning Commission: Bury the lines.

In a 5-1 vote Tuesday, the planning commission approved MEA’s plan to run high-voltage power lines from its substation near Mat-Su Regional Hospital to its Herning Substation just south of the Parks Highway. The fly in MEA’s ointment comes with a condition that those lines be underground rather than on the 80- to 100-foot poles MEA said is appropriate for those types of transmission lines carrying large amounts of electricity.

MEA has repeatedly maintained if the planning commission required undergounding or other alternatives to the lines, it intends to appeal the planning commission’s decision to a city hearing officer appointed by the mayor. After that, MEA can take the matter to court.

If the order that the lines be buried stands, MEA said it would then go to the Regulatory Commission of Alaska to argue that since the city caused what would have been a $9 million project to balloon into a $40 million project, city residents should have to bear those costs instead of spreading them over MEA’s customers from Talkeetna to Eagle River. Planning commissioner Jessica Dean addressed a good deal of her comments directly to MEA General Manager Joe Griffith.

“You looked me in the eye and said you would be willing to consider other options,” she said.

The Parks Highway route, the city has said from the start, doesn’t work as proposed because it would destroy views of the mountains coming into the city from the east. But another route might have worked, Dean said. The city held a workshop to look for one and MEA didn’t show.

“Your lack of participation tells me that you never intended to consider any other routes,” Dean said.

The lone vote against requiring the lines be buried was planning commissioner Jesse Sumner, who tried and failed prior to the vote to get the commission to consider not putting that requirement on MEA’s application.

Commissioner Pat Brown, who moved to require the lines be buried and also had suggested that MEA should put the lines in a utilidor — a kind of underground hallway to run utilities through — said the route was fine, just not the poles.

“We are following the established Wasilla Comprehensive Plan,” he said.

Brown said his utilidor idea was one he came up with when studying how lines are strung in other countries. He said it was a reaction to an MEA statement that buried lines are hard to maintain. The commission dropped the idea on advice from city attorney Richard Payne, who argued that telling MEA how to bury its lines would be getting too technical.

“They’re the experts on how power is to be delivered,” he said. “Requiring how it be put underground puts you outside the reach of our comprehensive plan.”

That was one of the things Ken Ray, who testified against the requirement the lines be buried, told the commission.

“You’re not engineers. Don’t get out your calculators,” he said.

He asked them to think of how it will to look to businesses thinking of building here when the power rates in Wasilla are higher than anywhere nearby.

“The viewshed of Wasilla has always had some power poles in it,” Ray said. “But Wasilla is more than just a couple of miles along the highway.”

Contact Andrew Wellner at 352-2270 or

andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com.