Old Harbor tribe asks Army Corps to permit Mountain Creek hydroelectric plant

The Alutiiq Tribe of Old Harbor has asked the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to authorize a run-of-river hydroelectric plant on the East Fork of Mountain Creek, according to a Corps public notice issued this week. The plant would serve Old Harbor, an Alutiiq village on the southeast side of Kodiak Island that depends on diesel generators for power.

The goal is to "reduce the village of Old Harbor’s reliance on diesel generation by providing a reliable source of long-term, renewable electricity," Cynthia Berns of the tribe said in the notice. She said the project would also shield the community from fuel price increases and stabilize the cost of energy overall.

The plant would divert water from the creek into a penstock, a pipe that carries water down to the turbines. It would be built in two phases. Phase 1 would build a 262-kilowatt powerhouse, diversion and intake structure, penstock, tailrace and constructed channel. Phase 2 would expand the powerhouse for a second 262-kilowatt turbine, bringing total capacity to 524 kilowatts. The tribe's project page lists output ranging from 140 kilowatts at low flow to 525 at peak, drawing up to 11.8 cubic feet per second from the creek year-round.

The work would permanently fill about 1.45 acres of wetlands and other federally regulated waters. The creek drains about 4.6 square miles.

The project site lies inside the Kodiak National Wildlife Refuge. A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service draft review from December 2025 weighed a 40-year right-of-way permit for the project. The tribe applied for that permit Aug. 28, 2025, and the service approved it March 13, the Corps notice says.

In August 2024, the U.S. Department of Energy announced $1.5 million to begin Phase 1 work, part of a federal cost share of up to nearly $10 million. The department expects the plant to generate about 3,470 megawatt-hours a year and offset 95% of diesel use at the village power plant. Partners include Old Harbor Native Corporation, the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium and the Alaska Village Electric Cooperative, according to the tribe's project page.

Rural Alaska communities have faced record-high diesel and gasoline prices this year, Bill Stamm, the cooperative's chief executive, wrote in an October post on its website. Remote villages paid an average of $6.63 a gallon for gasoline last winter, Alaska News reported April 19.

Hydropower supplied nearly 29% of Alaska's electricity and 90% of its renewable power in 2025, according to Gov. Mike Dunleavy's proclamation naming Aug. 24 Alaska Hydropower Day. The state has more than 50 hydroelectric facilities with a total capacity over 480 megawatts, the proclamation said.

The notice says the plant would be built in two years, beginning in April 2027 and ending by April 2030, with work phased to limit disturbance.

The Corps has not made a decision. Comments must reach the Corps by Nov. 27 to be considered.