In a News-Miner Community Perspective on Dec. 3, Anne Seneca argued in favor of the proposed Susitna-Watana Dam by advocating for an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy. With low oil prices projected to continue, the state of Alaska is not able to fund every energy project imaginable. Rather, we need to spend our money wisely by targeting financially sensible projects, protecting the resources we most value and pursuing enterprises that have the greatest chance of being successful. The proposed Susitna-Watana Dam fails to meet every one of those criteria.
With an advertised price tag of $5.2 billion, the dam is in direct competition with a small-diameter gas pipeline, estimated to cost approximately $8 billion. The Alaska Energy Authority’s projects have a long history of cost overruns, and it’s appropriate for the layperson to consider the dam and a small-diameter gas pipeline to essentially be undertakings of similar size. Either project alone would consume something on the order of one-third of the state’s cash reserves. Stop and think about that for a moment: funding both of these projects at the same time will almost completely drain Alaska’s remaining financial assets. Is that something we want to do just as we face years of expanding budget deficits? Alaskans need to ask themselves what they want to pursue — direct access to clean, exportable heat or a mega-dam?
Most Fairbanksans can agree the state should pursue a natural gas solution that promises to provide clean-burning, reasonably priced heating fuel and power generation instead of a dam that in the best-case scenario will only impact power costs. Asking these questions is imperative, and I’m not the only one who thinks so — the News-
Miner editorial board voiced this same opinion in its Dec. 9 editorial.
What’s more expensive for the majority of people in the proposed Susitna Dam’s area of service, their power bill or the cost of heating fuel? Which of those two problems demands more resources? Are we really going to pay more than
$5 billion for a project that might only lower power costs by a few cents per kilowatt-hour? Damming the Susitna will only allow you to run your television a little more, and it will irrevocably damage the Susitna Valley ecosystem. A reliable natural gas pipeline will provide heat and power with a comparatively minuscule environmental impact. Fairbanks’ greatest energy concern is to inexpensively and cleanly heat our homes. Fiscal reality demands we pursue only one of these options and, in Fairbanks, we clearly need to invest in the project that cleanly addresses heating costs.
As we live in a state that still values wilderness, cost is only one consideration. Adverse impacts to winter moose browse and juvenile salmon rearing habitat downstream of the dam is nearly certain. The middle reach of the Susitna River is dominated by the destructive and rejuvenating force of spring and fall ice jamming. These ice-jam events maintain channel structure, promote growth of moose browse within the floodplain and allow juvenile salmon to access lateral habitats such as beaver pond complexes.
This dam will take all of that away, and it won’t come back. Many Fairbanks residents may not fish for salmon and hunt for moose on the Susitna River, but commercial fishermen, small business owners and residents in Southcentral heavily rely on those populations. We have a responsibility to protect the right of our fellow Alaskans to put food on their table and support their families.
Pursuing every possible energy project might sound like a good idea if we had unlimited money to spend on infrastructure experiments, but we don’t. These are the facts: we cannot afford to build both a gas pipeline and dam the Susitna River, this dam would not help Fairbanksans heat their homes and this dam cannot be built without seriously impacting a pristine ecosystem. Let’s concentrate our resources on getting natural gas from the North Slope to Fairbanks and stop wasting money studying a dam that can’t meet our most critical energy needs or generate revenue for the state.
Tristan Cobine is a lifelong Fairbanks resident who works as a film producer, construction worker and information technology professional.
