Susitna Dam back on front burner

When Gov. Sarah Palin announced her plan to make the state get 50 percent of its electricity by 2025 from renewable resources, wind, solar and even tidal turbines came to mind.

Revisiting the Susitna Dam project didn’t.

It was one of those projects like growing barley in Delta, storing it in granaries in Seward and feeding it to dairy cattle on farms at Point MacKenzie.

Great ideas that started when oil started flowing down the pipeline from the Slope. It eventually became known as planting dimes and harvesting nickels.

The Susitna Dam fell by the wayside for similar reasons.

Much was made at the time about the environmental impact the dam, or dams, would have and its enormous cost. Some 20 years ago it was estimated to cost about $5 billion. Now the estimates run as high as $10 billion.

As Sen. Everett McKinley Dirksen is credited as saying, “A billion here and a billion there, and pretty soon you’re talking real money.”

And the environmental concerns haven’t gone away.

A mitigater, though, is what is often called the carbon footprint.

Some people, even environmentalists, say the dam project would, in the end, cause less damage than say a coal-fired plant that doesn’t use renewable energy. Coal is a finite product, even if there is a bunch of it here. And calling them clean-burning seems like an oxymoron.

Maybe this is the time for hydroelectric production on the Susitna. President Barack Obama seems to be advocating for massive projects that would create thousands of jobs.

Certainly the scope of building a dam, or dams, in the Alaska wilderness fits that bill. And the end result would be cheaper electricity generated by water, a resource so plentiful in Alaska that a Palin predecessor once wanted to ship it to California in giant bubbles.

Maybe Alaskans should float the idea of a dam to the president and his purse-string holders.

In the meantime, Gov. Palin and other state leaders should keep their eyes on the more practical ball — a natural gas pipeline.

They should also keep investigating other power sources.

Bush villages are learning about the benefits of wind generators.

Solar panels can heat homes.

And surely there is technology that allows tidal turbines in the waters without killing fish and whales.

Until all these options are in place, we as individuals can do simple things to ease the strain on power providers.

Turn off the lights when you’re not in the room. Turn down thermostat and dial down the temperature on your water heater.

Now it’s up to the legislature to give the dam project a fair and open hearing so the right decision is made, and it’s up to you to make your voice heard.