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Despite the clearly decisive results of the October election, the borough assembly appears to let politics decide their votes on important electrical issues. The vote to confirm the mayor’s selection to the Southeast Alaska Power Agency seats should have been voice votes, not secret ballots. The public is entitled to know how the assembly voted. It’s all about transparency. To select an inexperienced person to the voting seat for Petersburg, undermines Petersburg’s standing in the organization. John Jensen has served for years on the SEAPA...
WRANGELL — Wrangell’s mayor chose the community’s new voting and alternate member on next year’s Southeast Alaska Power Agency board. Based in Ketchikan, the regional power provider services that community, Wrangell and Petersburg. The three member utilities pool production from their hydroelectric facilities and collectively purchase power from the agency through 25-year power sales agreements, with the current agreement extending through 2034. Decisions guiding the agency is overseen by a governing board consisting of five voting directo...
Delays to line maintenance prompted by a public employee strike in Wrangell this June will cost a regional power utility an extra $103,000. Southeast Alaska Power Agency (SEAPA) chief executive Trey Acteson presented board members with a change order for the project, which would among other maintenance tasks replace marker balls along the transmission lines connecting Tyee Lake to the grid. Work had been set to start the latter half of June, during which time Wrangell would have had to run on its diesel backups. But an unrelated strike by two...
The governing board for Southeast Alaska Power Agency has approved a draft for next year's budget, as well as a hefty rebate to its member communities' utilities. The decision was supported by a fair financial position for the agency, which supplies hydroelectric power to Ketchikan, Wrangell and Petersburg. In a meeting held at Wrangell's Nolan Center Tuesday afternoon, SEAPA chief executive Trey Acteson explained sales revenues had come in higher than expected. Power sales to Ketchikan, Wrangel...
WRANGELL – Unionized public employees may soon strike as negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement with the city reaches an impasse. The escalation follows the City and Borough Assembly’s effective rejection on June 8 of a last best offer made by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Works Local #1547, which represents 24 employees of various departments and utilities. The proposal directly to the Assembly was a unique break from traditional collective bargaining negotiations, a provision that had been agreed to when the two p...
WRANGELL-It was out of the workplace and into the streets for many Wrangell city staff Thursday morning, as two dozen unionized workers began a strike over prolonged contract negotiations. The City and Borough has been negotiating for a new collective bargaining agreement with the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 1547 since the summer of 2014, when the previous CBA expired. The process has at times been tumultuous, with court proceedings through the fall of 2016 being... Full story
WRANGELL – The city’s annual switch-over to diesel power is scheduled to begin next week, lasting just under two weeks. Electrical superintendent Clay Hammer explained the temporary transition is to allow Southeast Alaska Power Agency – a utility providing hydroelectric power to the communities of Wrangell, Ketchikan and Petersburg – to undertake maintenance projects on its infrastructure. While those lines are down, it falls on municipalities to generate their own power during the interim, with Wrangell and Petersburg firing up its diesel...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly voted to approve in its final reading an ordinance that provides an eight cent power rate for the school buildings despite continued pleas from Petersburg Medical Center staff to give the hospital the rate as well. The break-even power rate applies to the aquatic boiler room, the aquatic center, the high school, middle school and elementary school. The request comes after meetings between the Petersburg School District, Petersburg Medical Center and borough administrators on how to maintain services without...
The Petersburg Borough Assembly voted in its second reading to approve an ordinance that provides an 8 cent power rate for the school buildings. The break-even power rate applies to the aquatic boiler room, the aquatic center, the high school, middle school and elementary school. The request comes after meetings between the Petersburg School District, Petersburg Medical Center and borough administrators on how to maintain services without increasing fees or taxes. During its last meeting, member Jeigh Stanton Gregor suggested the assembly appro...
WRANGELL – In its first meeting of the new year, the governing board for Southeast Alaska Power Agency looked ahead to political reshufflings at the state and federal levels. Meeting in Petersburg February 8, members of the board learned from SEAPA executive officer Trey Acteson a change in administrations at the federal level could be useful to the agency’s future operations. For example, only two commissioners sitting on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission – which licenses hydropower projects – remain in place since the swearing in of P...
The front page article (February 9, 2017) incorrectly cited the wholesale power rate from the Southeast Alaska Power Agency at 8 cents. SEAPA’s base wholesale power rate is 6.8 cents per kWh....
The Petersburg Borough Assembly discussed a request made by the Petersburg School District and Petersburg Medical Center to pay a lower power rate last month. The request comes after meetings between PSD, PMC and borough administrators on how to maintain services without increasing fees or taxes. "The school, the hospital and the borough have been getting together in these meetings to try to figure out ways that we can continue to function in the way the community wants without having to cut...
WRANGELL – The governments of Alaska and neighboring province British Columbia initiated their first bilateral working group on transboundary mining and water quality concerns earlier this month. In a statement from his office released last week, Lieutenant Governor Byron Mallott expressed his appreciation for the meeting, which was one of the measures outlined in a statement of cooperation the two governments signed in October. The agreement was a next step in the process of addressing concerns among Southeast Alaskan communities about the e...
WRANGELL – Primary construction work at Swan Lake wrapped up last week, leaving full capacity for its hydroelectric dam 15 feet higher than it was at the year's start. The $10,000,000 project was undertaken by Southeast Alaska Power Agency, a utility covering the communities of Ketchikan, Wrangell and Petersburg. Starting about two weeks behind schedule earlier in the summer, workers finished with time to spare with the barge platform used for the project's crane departing last week with gen...
WRANGELL – Costs for the transition of operations at the Tyee Lake hydroelectric facility may be higher than first expected. Board members for Southeast Alaska Power Agency learned at their September 8 meeting that the unfunded pensions liability for Wrangell employees at the plant were more than double what was estimated when it assumed operations. SEAPA CEO Trey Acteson explained consultants had put the city"s liabilities to the state Public Employees" Retirement System at $648,206, which i... Full story
Power service went down to southern Southeast Alaska communities, following problems at the Swan Lake dam site on June 8. The hydroelectric dam is one of two major producers utilized by Southeast Alaska Power Agency, primarily servicing the Ketchikan area. This year an effort is being made to raise the dam, a $10 million project which will increase active storage by 25 percent and yield between 6,000 and 12,000 megawatt hours annually. A five-megawatt load bank being used during the project experienced a problem with its cooling circuit, which... Full story
The Southeast Alaska Power Agency (SEAPA) board held its regular meeting in Petersburg last week, with board members in attendance from Ketchikan, Wrangell and Petersburg. Much of the meeting focused on project updates and approving the company's FY17 budget. SEAPA CEO Trey Acteson asked the board to consider a motion to provide one-year notice to end the contract with Ketchikan Public Utilites (KPU), concerning operations at Swan Lake hydroelectric plant near Ketchikan. For Acteson, the move ma...
At its board meeting in Ketchikan April 28, Southeast Alaska Power Agency agreed to look into the feasibility of putting in a third generating unit at the Tyee Lake hydroelectric facility. The proposal was put forward by board members representing Wrangell and Petersburg, whose communities Tyee predominantly powers. Operating since 1984, the Tyee hydro facility uses water from a natural lake, which is funneled into a drop shaft feeding two generating units that together generate 25 megawatts of power. In the original construction, the...
Petersburg power went out Tuesday morning after a rotten tree fell into lines in Ketchikan. “Our outage resulted from a large tree in the Ketchikan lines, which took down the whole SEAPA transmission system,” Petersburg Power and Light Superintendent Joe Nelson said. Ketchikan Public Utilities electric division manager Andrew Donato said the tree hit a point where the Southeast Alaska Power Agency line comes into Ketchikan. “These power lines contained, at the very top, SEAPA 115 KV lines followed by our sub transmission followed by our distr... Full story
Southeast Alaska Power Agency (SEAPA) board of directors held a special board meeting telephonically to approve a budget increase and construction contract. During a February meeting in Wrangell the board discussed the possibility of completing the Swan-Tyee Intertie Helicopter Pad Project in FY2016. SEAPA staff requested a $937,395 increase to the fiscal year budget to complete the project. The approval of the budget included a $53,165 increase to the overall budget of the project. Voting alternate and electrical superintendent Clay Hammer...
wrangell — A crowd-drawing discussion on recreation funding held by the Forest Service Tuesday evening made the council chambers at City Hall feel unusually short for space. About two dozen members of the public met with staff of the Wrangell Ranger District to share their concerns about facilities maintenance. Listing concerns from greatest to least, residents participating at the meeting identified cabins, ATV trails and the overall recreation program as their top priorities, followed by trails, berry access, subsistence and stoves. F...
January-June January Petersburg School Superintendent Lisa Stroh resigned from her position citing family medical issues as her reason for leaving although communication between borough staff and student letters indicated turmoil between Stroh and school staff. Two third and fourth grade elementary students published their own class newspapers. Former Petersburg School District Maintenance Director Tye Petersen was sentenced to 12 years in prison for Distribution, Receipt and Possession of... Full story
Wrangell and Petersburg utilities can be expecting a rebate this year from Southeast Alaska Power Agency. This summer the board approved a rebate of $1.5 million for member utilities. A formal award plan was presented at last week’s meeting in Ketchikan on Dec. 10, with $340,563 to go to Wrangell and $372,343 to Petersburg. The remaining $787,093 would be distributed to Ketchikan. Voting alternate and electrical superintendent Clay Hammer represented Wrangell at the meeting, and he explained the rebate was possible in part because of funds u...
Bering Sea crabbers are again facing the possibility of a delayed fishery as Congressional Republicans threaten to shut down the government, this time over federal funding of Planned Parenthood. A shutdown two years ago stalled the crab opener by two days, costing the fleet more than $5 million in food, fuel and other fees as the boats stood idly by for a week or more awaiting an outcome. “It was a huge mess last time,” said Mark Gleason, executive director of the trade group, Alaska Bering Sea Crabbers. “We have a very tight time frame – whe...
In a special meeting on July 7, board members of the Southeast Alaska Power Agency (SEAPA) met to discuss two items. The board voted to award a bid not to exceed $396,080 for the Swan Lake Powerhouse Roof Membrane Project to the Sitka-based company CBC Construction. The company was one of four that submitted bids, which ranged from $336,569 to $566,258. Petersburg Power and Light Superintendent Joe Nelson was the sole dissenting vote. He said he had reservations about the large spread of bid amounts and the design of the roof. “I think we s... Full story
