Round 4 set for MEA, Wasilla

WASILLA — Whether it’s stringing them 80 to 100 feet above the Parks Highway or burying them, the alternatives to installing high-voltage power lines through part of the city also symbolize a schism that’s developed between the city and Matanuska Electric Association.

For the fourth time, the Wasilla Planning Commission is set Tuesday to vote on an application from MEA to upgrade power lines between its Mat-Su Regional Hospital and Herning substations. The installation of 115-kilivolt double-circuit power lines would include building 80- to 100-foot-tall towers to hold the lines, a plan the city has adamantly opposed because the towers would destroy the viewshed along Wasilla’s commercial corridor along the highway.

Since MEA submitted its application to the planning commission, the commission discussed the plan in May, then continued that meeting to June. At the June meeting, the commission again put off a vote in deference to the city holding more public meetings about the lines, which was done prior to the commission’s July meeting. In July, the commission reviewed recommendations from residents at those meetings that included relocating the lines along existing railroad routes or burying the lines instead of stringing them from large towers.

Again adjourning without a vote on the MEA application, the electricity cooperative will be back for a fourth time Tuesday, when the planning commission is expected to finally take a vote.

“It is our hope that they will make a decision of some kind,” MEA spokesman Kevin Brown said. “We would love to walk in there and have them tell us that, after careful consideration, the low-cost (plan) is the best route. I don’t think that will happen, but I would hope they would make a decision.”

One of the main arguments MEA has maintained about possible alternative routes is cost. The co-op’s preferred route would cost about $9.75 million to install, while other routes range up to nearly $14 million. Another alternative that has gained traction is to not string the lines overhead at all, but to bury them. That, MEA has said, could cost about $40 million, or exponentially more, depending on the method of undergrounding the power lines.

Wasilla Mayor Verne Rupright has been vocal about his desire to either relocate or undergound the lines, but said the planning commission will make its own decision. That could include approving MEA’s route, but amending conditions like requiring the lines be buried or located in a utilidor.

“I don’t know what they’re going to do, I want to keep my hands out of that,” he said of the commission’s options. “What I caution the staff about is that they’re not engineers and they shouldn’t design anything.”

That’s why the recommendation from city staff this time around asks for the commission to approve MEA’s application with the condition that lines be installed underground. That’s a little different from the direction the commission members were taking in their July meeting, when they discussed the possibility of a utilidor, which could include building a tunnel that could house utilities and provide maintenance access.

That’s where those exponential costs could come into play, Brown said. Depending on the size and type of utilidor the planning commission could require, the cost could range from millions more than just burying the lines, to hundreds of millions or more, he said.

“Given that enormous range of cost, it’s incredibly difficult to give the planning commission the information they want — what would this cost?” Brown said. Other areas of the Untied States with utilidors are usually densely populated urban areas, he said. And depending on the scope of the utilidor — how large it is, what it would take to engineer it to stand up to Alaska’s frequent earthquakes, etc. — it’s difficult to know just how much it could cost.

That also seems a little much to Rupright and his staff, which is recommending the lines be buried, which he said is consistent with the city’s master plan. He also said the prolonged standoff between MEA and the planning commission needs resolution.

The commission “needs to come up with a decision, because you can’t stay at a checkmate forever,” Rupright said. “That becomes counterproductive.”

While cost is the motivating factor for fighting to overhead the lines along its preferred route, Brown and MEA General Manager Joe Griffith have repeatedly said that, if forced to go with a more expensive alternative — like undergrounding — MEA is prepared to petition the Regulatory Commission of Alaska to create a special rate increase only for Wasilla residents to pay for the difference.

“Our stance on it from the beginning is we have an obligation to provide service and we have and obligation for all our members, so we build to low-cost, high-reliability standards,” Brown said. “If a group of residents want something above and beyond that, then they are the causers of that extra (cost) and … we feel we don’t have to pass those costs on to all the ratepayers.”

That’s a threat that rings hollow with Rupright. Those high-voltage lines won’t only serve Wasilla city residents, they help move power along the Railbelt through the city and to other parts far beyond city limits.

“It serves a whole grid area, and Joe just recently said at the chamber of commerce that the Herning Substation is the key to the Railbelt,” Rupright said. “If Herning is the big dog on the block and the whole grid hinges on that substation, the cost should be spread all across the Railbelt.”

Contact Greg Johnson at 352-2269 or greg.johnson@frontiersman.com.

What: Wasilla Planning Commission’s August meeting

When: 7 p.m., Tuesday, Aug. 13

Where: Wasilla City Council Chambers, 290 E. Herning Ave.

Why: MEA permit application to build tall towers to carry high-voltage power lines.