Wales to move fuel tanks, power plant inland as erosion threatens coast

The Alaska Village Electric Cooperative is accepting public comments through June 5 on a plan to relocate fuel storage tanks and a power plant in Wales away from the eroding coastline. The project would move critical infrastructure to an elevated gravel pad 17 feet above sea level to protect it from storm surges and flooding.

The cooperative would build four new 30,000-gallon fuel tanks for its operations and three additional tanks for the City of Wales, which would operate a retail fuel sales facility. A new modular power plant would house three generators with a combined capacity of 835 kilowatts. The existing tank farms and power plant would be decommissioned.

Construction would fill 1.99 acres of wetlands with 20,200 cubic yards of gravel, requiring federal water quality certification under the Clean Water Act. The project is designed to withstand severe coastal erosion, increasing storm intensity, and flooding associated with strong Bering Sea storm systems, according to the application.

New fuel pipelines would run from the tank farms to a barge header near the shoreline north of Village Creek. The project is funded through a $100 million Environmental Protection Agency grant authorized under the Clean Air Act, received by the Denali Commission and managed by the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium.

Construction is scheduled to begin in June 2026 and finish by June 2028.

Comments can be submitted through the Department of Environmental Conservation website at dec.alaska.gov/commish/public-notices or by email to [email protected] with the subject line referencing POA-2026-00131 v1.0. For more information, contact William Stamm at the Alaska Village Electric Cooperative at 907-561-1818 or [email protected].