When Anchorage voters agreed to sell Municipal Light and Power to Chugach Electric Association, the municipality lost its voting rights on the Eklutna Hydro Project Operating Committee, of which it was one of the former owners.
The Anchorage Assembly has wanted to renegotiate the deal and get back to the decision making table, as the current mayor and Assembly leadership have a goal of dismantling the dam that provides power and water to Anchorage.
Eklutna produces electricity that power around 25,000 homes in Anchorage and Mat-Su and is the lowest-cost renewable energy in Southcentral Alaska.
The Regulatory Commission of Alaska has considered the Anchorage Assembly’s request to be returned as a voting member of the power project, and has said no, no, and no: The city is not represented in decisions about the hydro project and won’t be for the next 35 years.
Getting voting rights back has been a priority of Assembly Chairman Chris Constant and leftist members who control Anchorage government, who want to dismantle the Eklutna Dam — but on their own terms, which involve waiting until there is a Democrat governor in office who might make the decision to put them back on the ownership team. They want to put salmon into the Eklutna River, which has had dams in various places since 1927.
The decision by the RCA is sweeping: “We grant the motion to dismiss filed by the Office of the Attorney General, Regulatory Affairs and Public Advocacy Section (RAPA) in part, and dismiss the Notice and Request for Acknowledgment of Anchorage Hydropower’s Acquisition of Expertise Required to Participate as a Voting Member of the Eklutna Operating Committee (Notice and Request) filed by the Municipality of Anchorage d/b/a Anchorage Hydropower (AHP) on July 18, 2024. We deny the motion to dismiss in part. We vacate the remaining procedural schedule adopted for resolution of this docket, including the prehearing conference scheduled for November 18, 2024, and the public hearing scheduled to begin on November 18, 2024. We deny the motion to compel discovery responses jointly filed by Chugach Electric Association, Inc. (Chugach) and Matanuska Electric Association, Inc. (MEA). We deny the request by AHP to construe its Notice and Request as apetition to modify the conditions on AHP’s certificate of public convenience and necessity (certificate). We provide guidance to AHP for its consideration should it make future filings related to reinstatement of Eklutna Operating Committee (EOC) voting rights. We close this docket.”
The short version is that the RCA denied the Municipality’s claim that it should be among the voting members of the project.
As the RCA decision explained, the RCA originally approved the transaction under which Chugach Electric acquired the service obligations and most of the ML&P assets, subject to conditions.
One of these conditions required ML&P to surrender its voting rights on the Eklutna operating committee prior to the effective date of the agreements under which ML&P’s successor (Chugach) would be providing part of its share of the Eklutna Project output to Chugach (the Eklutna Power Purchase Agreement and selling the remainder of its share of the Eklutna Project output to Matanuska Electric Association.
“We required that this surrender must have a term at least equal to the term of the Eklutna PPA and the MEA PPA, as those agreements may be extended, and cannot be lifted until such time as MHP has shown to our satisfaction that MHP has acquired the expertise required to fully participate as a voting member of the EOC. This does not prohibit MHP from attending EOC meetings, but may not allow MHP any ability to delay or change the Eklutna Project decisions made by the Chugach and MEA representatives on the EOC,” the commission said.
To comply and sell off ML&P, the Municipality of Anchorage relinquished its Eklutka voting rights effective Oct. 30, 2019.
Five years later, once the environmentalists and Eklutna Village started pushing for destroying the dam, the Assembly, with its new mayor that complies with its wishes, wanted back in.
In August of this year, the city filed a request for reinstatement of its voting rights, asserting that Anchorage Water and Wastewater General Manager Mark A. Corsentino had been appointed to be the General Manager of Anchorage Hydropower and that AWWU Engineering Director Mark Schimscheimer would provide support to Corsentino, both appointees by the Mayor LaFrance Administration. The Eklutna Village agreed with the city’s request to rejoin the operating committee.
But Chugach Electric Association and Matanuska Electric Association wanted further investigation, and that investigation did not favor the Anchorage municipality. A deal’s a deal, said the RCA.
The news is good for ratepayers, who would end up with the short end of the deal if the Assembly got back on the operating committee.
The municipality has 30 days to appeal the RCA ruling, which was rendered Nov. 14.
Read the full RCA decision here:
Wonderful
Any day that Chris Constant gets whipped by the grownups is a good day for Anchorage and, in this case, all of southcentral Alaska. He can send a thank you note to Ethan Berkowitz, the commie mayor who engineered the deal. Missing Dave Bronson yet, Anchorage?
Great comment I second your statement about a good decision because Chris got put in his place.
Don’t forget that Mark Begich got a fat commission for putting this deal together.
“……..Chugach Electric Association and Matanuska Electric Association wanted further investigation……..”
Yeah, I’d like to see more yet. I’m still trying to piece this insane political puzzle together. I can easily understand the Eklutha village and the environmental industry trying to shut off 90% of Anchorage’s water, but I can’t understand voters repeatedly re-electing assembly representation that openly wants to turn off their life necessary water. Are the people of Anchorage insane? That is a city killing move. Societal suicide. What’s really going on here?
They are terminally ignorant.
Removing the dam wouldn’t impact the water supply (in theory). More likely it would kill the available water for the power plant by vastly reducing the stored water amount the dam provides.
What happened to the 1 BILLION dollars the city received from the sale of ML&P?
That is a great question, Scott. – sd
I’ve never saw the decrease in my electricity bill as promised
…or property taxes!
Where’s the relief of public drunkenness from the alcohol tax? Where’s the improvement in roads from the 10 cent per gallon of gas tax? Where’s the benefit from the marijuana tax?
The Assembly members are professional con artists and flim-flam men and women. They consistently find ways to skirt around the tax cap and push people out of Anchorage. They single handily have destroyed Downtown, Mid-town, Mountain View and most of the Muldoon area and West Anchorage.
To think Boston rioted over tea, and Anchorage won’t even raise its voice over these multiple taxes.
Mark Begich and others have been pocketing that money under the “homelessness” BS. The assembly has been running a racketeering operation for years and fleecing the property tax payers in the process.
There never was 1 BILLION to be received, it was all a scam. Meanwhile Chugach is struggling to make it all work.
To destroy the dam that provides so much necessary electric power for some fish is beyond ridiculous. Anchorage won’t allow drilling for more gas, so no.
It’s not about the fish, it’s about them wanting more money, wait and see…..
Sounds like a big win.
Scott, the city has been busy giving money away to the homeless industrial complex in case you haven’t noticed. That money will eventually run dry, alas the plan to implement a sales tax. There solved it for you. You’re welcome
I don’t understand why Chris constant, lafrance and even Felix Rivera want to act like they are God and govern this city by whatever they want to put forward. I’m glad they got a slap in the face. I hope to high heaven we get normal people back in that assembly.
Finally, the voice of reason prevails. Constant and his ilk want to be kings and they need to be stopped. The sales tax idea is a non starter. The other sales taxes on alcohol and gasoline were passed illegally, as the charter dictates a 3/5 majority of the voters have to approve any sales tax. The majority of the assembly have run rough shod over the people paying the bill and it has to be stopped.
C’MON They don’t care about the fish. They were hoping you did, Anchorage voted to have a Democrap run city GOOD JOB The best is yet to come cause they don’t like to lose