Tweak ordinance; forget petition

Matanuska Electric Association is paying a petition taker $1 a signature to help gather the 1,854 needed to put a question on a future ballot asking voters to repeal the Mat-Su Borough’s ordinance regulating the building of power generation plants.

The Borough enacted its ordinance last August as a response to MEA’s controversial plans to build a 100-megawatt coal-fired electric generation plant. The project was part of an overall plan that also includes a 100-megawatt gas-fired plant. As debate smoldered over the coal plant, the electricity cooperative decided in December to shelve its plans for a coal plant for at least five years.

MEA’s intent to build a gas-fired plant has been, until now, a fairly benign proposal. Natural gas is the preferred energy source and one the state is pushing hard to tap into more. It’s the future of Alaska energy and the cooperative’s wanting to build a gas-fired plant has generated little to no controversy. That the Borough’s ordinance also is a roadblock to MEA moving forward with building a gas plant is smoke and mirrors.

We find it hard to believe that the $11 million MEA claims it would incur meeting the Borough’s new guidelines, which apply to any power generation plant of 50 megawatts and larger, is a deal-breaker for building its gas-fired plant. We also understand, and support, MEA’s right to legally petition for a ballot initiative. If the co-op’s board of directors is counting on the same response it received last fall when it asked a loaded question of its member-owners, it will be disappointed in the end.

Valley voters aren’t likely to support lifting the Borough’s power plant regulation ordinance and again stoke the fires for coal generation. Although MEA says it intends to stick to its decision to put off discussions of a coal generation plant for at least five years, that decision was made partly in response to the Borough’s ordinance. With those restrictions lifted, the temptation to revive that part of its plan may be too tempting for MEA.

Simply put, the Mat-Su Borough Assembly has sent a strong message: If you want to build, this is what you have to do. In the end, MEA will have to comply or not move forward with its plans to build more generation.

On the other side of the pillow, we would encourage the Borough to work with MEA (and we understand this may be happening) and determine if there are parts of its regulations that are more specific toward burning coal and can be waived to allow fewer restrictions on gas-fired generation. To be frank, the Borough slapped the restrictions on the table in response to coal. With coal out of the picture, why take the slim chance voters would repeal the ordinance altogether?

We’re not advocating locking MEA in the candy store after hours; however, if the Mat-Su Borough Assembly could act so quickly and decisively reacting to the potential for a coal plant, perhaps it could also do the same for a method of power generation with which nobody seems to have a problem.