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_MEA backs intertie pact
By SANDRA MEDEARIS
Frontiersman reporter
The Matanuska Electric Asso- ciation board approved a drart proposal Tuesday that could
Dut the co-op into aebt tor 512 million to build two power
transmission lines, one trom Anchorage to Soldotna and one
from Healy to Fairbanks. The money is MEA’s share of
intertie costs over and above a
$90 million state matching grant to Railbelt utilities for the project. The price tag to build the two
transmission lines is estimated at $180 million, said Tamie Miller, MEA board president.
The cost share is being as- signed using percentages coin-
ciding with seven Railbeit utii-
ities’ ownership of the Bradlev
Lake hydroelectric project near Homer.
Costs beyond the grant ulti-
mately will be borne by power consumers, but these costs can
be diminished by interest on the
$90 million grant and by sur- charges, including 1.5 miils per
kilowatt-hour on energy gener-
ated by the Bradley Lake gener- ator.
Interest on that hefty sum
from the taxpayers’ wailets amounts to $17,000 to $22,000 a
day, said Miller. But the state
xeeps the money in its piggy
dank until the Railbelt utilities come to an agreement on pay- ng construction and mainte-
lance costs of the interties. Sixof seven utilities, includ- ¢ ing MEA, have now signed or ¢ flavecommitted ‘to sign the in- * tertie grant agreement present+ ed to'and approved by the MEA” board.at'd Special meeting Fues-
day, said Ken Ritchey, MEA general manager.
Intertie funds will go to
Chugach Electric Association in Anchorage and Golden Valley Electric Association in the Fair-
banks area, but:intertie money’ 15 to be kept ifitact until a partic-y ipation agreement has been? :eacHed’ among the utilities, 7 with Oct. 15.as a target. ~
Utilities-ready-to: go-on the »
agreement-represent 68 percent, of the. voting power of the group: Still thinking twice is Chugach, with the remaining third of the voting power.
Chugach has concerns with
one-of the utilities holding veto
power--to.stop. progress-on the
interties, giving-the group a-say*
o¥erstransmission line-access? ind-alsovabout-being sued for
decisions, made.by_ the intertie
Jroup,.said:David«Highers > Chugach general manager, in a
letter to Homer Electric Associ-
ation general manager Norm Story. “ Chugach*wants:to:bring it back to zero a Wednesday. “I say, no, the train
has already left the station.
_ The six of us are standing fii
1 s
WO nership percentages based on Bradley Lake are the follow- ing: Golden Valley, 15.26 per- cent; Fairbanks Municipal Utili- ties, 4.65; Anchorage Municipal Light and Power, 22.25;
Chugach, 32.04; MEA, 13.35; HEA, 11.21; Seward, 1.24.
Since voting power coincides closely to ownership, Golden
Valley and Chugach, the chief beneficiaries of the interties, are
jugtshort:of a voting: majority, + with 47.3 percent? MEA board members Miller, Bonnie Burgoyne, Aaron Down-
ing, Rod Cottle, and Jim Her- man voted unanimously to in-
struct Ritchey to sign the inter-
tie grant agreement, subject to minor modifications with
Miller’s approval, and to begin
negotiation on subsequent agreements to permit the inter-
tle projects to begin. Board
members Frank Mielke and
Desi Mavo were absent.
gain,” said ry
she said. We're not blink- ;