MAT-SU - Whether government should regulate the Mat-Su Valley's electric cooperative is fast brewing into a bitter war of words between Matanuska Electric Association and the Mat-Su Borough.

The Borough could cost electric co-op member owners a new power generation system if a proposed electric generation ordinance is passed by the assembly. The ordinance would require power producers looking to build new generation in the Mat-Su Valley to receive approval from the Borough Planning Commission.

Matanuska Electric Association has already announced its plans to build 200 megawatts of new electric generation in the heart of the Mat-Su Valley by 2015. MEA proposes to build a 100-megawatt gas-fired plant and a 100-megawatt coal-fired facility. Until then, MEA buys its power from Chugach Electric Association and the Eklutna Lake hydroelectric project. MEA has informed Chugach Electric it will not renew the decades-old contract when it expires Dec. 31, 2014. Tuckerman Babcock, assistant general manager for MEA, has said that his co-op's plan for new generation will result in electricity that is cheaper to rate-payers and more reliable. This assumption has been called into doubt by independent utility consultant Mark Foster.

If the borough were concerned about power generation, it could have introduced its ordinance any time during MEA's two-year public process, Babcock has said. That the borough is now rushing to regulate new power plants by the end of July goes against the wishes of the 4,300 MEA member-owners who voted to build a coal plant south of Palmer.

Babcock believes Borough Assembly Members Tom Kluberton, Michelle Church and Mary Kvalheim have all made up their minds to vote against the coal plant. Planning Commissioner Mark Masteller, who is also the director of the Alaska Center for Appropriate Technology, has made public comments against the coal plant in the past, Babcock said.

Under those circumstances, Babcock does not believe the proposed ordinance is meant to regulate power plants, but to stop MEA.

“This is not an ordinance to protect people,” Babcock said. “It is to bludgeon us into not building a coal plant. It is an overtly and purely political act on the part of the borough.”

Borough staff should have taken into account the ordinances of Alaska municipalities that already have power generation, like Anchorage, Fairbanks, Denali Borough or Seward, he said. “The Mat-Su Borough's only source [of information guiding its regulations] is a statewide ordinance from California.”

Borough Manager John Duffy said the borough based its ordinance on California's because it covers much of the emissions, view shed, noise and environmental issues brought to the borough by concerned residents. Because California had already adopted a similar ordinance, Duffy said the borough's version is close to vetted.

Whether the borough believes California residents share the same concerns as locals, it should trust MEA and the co-op's seven locally elected board members to conduct a sufficiently open public process, Babcock said, adding that MEA has experience behind its decisions.

“MEA has been doing its business for 25 years longer than the borough, and we are constantly learning how best to conduct public processes,” he said.

The rushed timeline of the borough's ordinance pales in comparison with MEA's site selection process, Duffy said. Officials have to fast-track the ordinance to keep pace with MEA's progress in procuring the land and permitting for a 100-megawatt coal-fired generator and a 100-megawatt gas-fired generator south of Palmer at Mile 37 of the Glenn Highway.

Assembly member Tom Kluberton asked Duffy to write the ordinance, and said it would require MEA to show its process, plan and the impact of its power plants.

“And let us think about it detail by detail,” Kluberton said. “And while we are at it, we hire an expert because we may not know what we are doing.”

When asked if Kluberton's constituents asked for a closer look at MEA's plan. Kluberton said, “It is not as much ‘take a closer look' as it is ‘we're leaving the area if this thing goes through.'”

Kluberton said he is not surprised by MEA's response to his ordinance.

“Not the first time I've heard ‘those darn borough guys,'” he said, adding that this is a case of verifying what MEA has reported and learning about issues MEA has yet to reveal. He compared MEA's plan to that of the coal bed methane producers before the borough's CBM ordinance went into effect.

“Don't want to learn what the realities of living with coal bed methane from the coal bed methane industry,” Kluberton said. “They'll tell you it is all roses.”

Mary Kvalheim, also a Mat-Su Borough Assembly member, said the borough is adept at more than parks, roads and schools, as Babcock has asserted.

“We also do land use quite well,” Kvalheim said. “Look at the [Borough's] coal bed methane ordinance. Fowler Oil and Gas is OK living with that ordinance.”

Kvalheim said the borough is reacting to complaints and concerns of its residents.

“They look to the borough for what they feel most frightened of,” he said. “Through the power of land use we protect the people living here.”

Contact Russell Stigall at 352-2267 or russell.stigall@frontiersman.com.