With funding from the Alaska Energy Authority a series of regional energy plans are in the works to help individuals and communities become more energy efficient.
The Chugach Regional Energy Plan is being developed for the Prince William Sound region, and on Tuesday the project team held a Community Outreach Meeting in Valdez.
Attendance at Tuesday’s meeting was slim, but the City of Valdez and other key organizations were well represented. Project Specialist Jackie Schaeffer says that’s important.
“As long as we get a broad range of community leaders in the room that can look at the broad perspective of energy which includes all those components — housing, landfill, power production, renewables, transportation — then we get a clearer picture of the needs of the community from that perspective,” Schaeffer says.
The Prince William Sound Economic District is the project contractor, and the idea is to get accurate and up to date information from towns within each region says Jed Drolet from the Alaska Energy Authority.
At the meeting the plan outline was discussed, folks pointed out several inaccuracies and offered contact information on how to get them corrected. The presenters say they learned a lot, adding that there are many similarities among places they’ve visited.
Drolet says people in the smaller Prince William Sound communities showed up in force:
The two will hold a Community Outreach Meeting in Cordova on Wednesday.
Marcia Lynn is a reporter at KBBI in Homer.
