Petersburg Assembly advances pause on some data centers, rejects a wider one

The Petersburg Borough Assembly voted 5-1 Monday to advance a moratorium on borough permits for some data centers. Assembly Member Jeff Meucci voted no.

The pause would run through Sept. 30, 2027. It would cover new data centers and expansions that exceed the borough electric utility's grid capacity, rely on generators for normal power or lack closed-loop cooling, in which coolant stays contained and recirculates. Projects that meet all three limits could still get permits.

The measure still needs two more Assembly readings and a public hearing before it takes effect. Under the ordinance, it would apply to pending applications but would not revoke permits already issued. It covers only areas where the borough can now issue permits. Vice Mayor Jeigh Stanton Gregor, who brought the measure forward, said it would reach farther as the borough's zoning code catches up.

Meucci's amendment to cover all data centers, whatever their cooling or grid connection, failed 3-3. Meucci said he had listened to a Southeast Alaska Power Agency board presentation Friday about a data center of 5 to 15 megawatts somewhere on the grid Petersburg shares with Wrangell and Ketchikan. "I am not going to sell my soul for $1 million or $2 million coming out of electrical rates," he said.

Stanton Gregor said the amendment was "very contradictory to the intent of my ordinance," which he said would "prevent a large multi-acre data center that is off the grid." Assembly Member James Valentine, who voted for the amendment, said a pause on all data centers would give the borough a winter of power data and stressed it would not be a permanent ban.

Mayor Bob Lynn said the three communities on the shared grid largely agree on some kind of moratorium and plan to meet again about Nov. 14.

Resident Becky Knight said the measure "reads more like a de facto conditional use permit." She asked for a no-exceptions ban of at least a year and an immediate town hall.

Tara Pavilla, president of Mazzella Alaska, said her company's small project, on existing industrial property with closed-loop cooling, would bring utility revenue, privately funded engineering to identify grid upgrades and possible heat recovery. She said the company submitted its building permit package Aug. 10, that the borough used it to write the moratorium, and that the project has been approved at the state and local level. Borough Community Development Director Liz Cabrera said in October that the borough had no complete building permit for the project at the former Ocean Beauty property, Alaska News reported Oct. 13.

The Assembly deadlocked 3-3 in September on a one-year moratorium. In October it directed staff to draft this narrower pause after a broader version also failed 3-3.