High-ranking Army official says decision was based on Trump executive order to ‘Unleash America’s Energy’
The Army has quietly scrapped a plan to replace Fort Wainwright’s old coal-fired heat and power plant.
Army officials decided in 2022 to replace the nearly 70-year-old facility. But they terminated that plan six months ago to comply with an executive order issued last year by President Donald Trump.
Army officials determined about seven years ago that they needed to do something to replace or upgrade Fort Wainwright’s increasingly undependable and inefficient coal-fired central heat and power plant. The facility was completed in 1955 and is one of the country’s oldest power plants still in operation – hanging on more than 30 years longer than it was designed to last.
“The Army mission here is at some risk with a single source of heat that is that old, and a distribution system that, much of it, is that old as well,” says Stephen Stringham. He’s a former chief of Fort Wainwright’s Utilities Privatization and Maintenance Division.
In 2019, Stringham talked with KUAC about his concerns over a problems at the plant, including a couple of fires that broke out that year. Another problem was excessive emissions that required the contractor, Fairbanks-based Doyon Utilities, to reduce the plant’s level of generation.
And also, blackouts, like one in December 2018 that lasted for hours.
“We had a complete power failure,” he said, “and the installation was without power for several hours.”
Army officials said in the project’s Final Environmental Impact Statement issued in 2022 that Doyon paid some $70 million in upgrades and repairs on the plant and its steam-heat system. But, Stringham said, the facilities “have experienced several separate near-catastrophic failures, most of which halted the plant’s ability to generate electricity or provide steam.”
He said the problems served as a sort of wakeup call on the need to fix the problems with the 20-megawatt plant.
“With older equipment, if it’s going to break down it’s going to break down you least want it to break down – when you most need it,” he added.
The plant also has had problems meeting regulatory requirements. In 2018, post officials directed Doyon Utilities to run the plant at no more than 80 percent capacity because its carbon monoxide emissions were exceeding federal limits. That required running the plant less-efficiently.
Army officials said in 2019 that continued reliance on the plant’s old technologies were increasing the cost of generating heat and power. They said that’s why Fort Wainwright had one of the highest heating costs of any installation in the Army.
That same year, the Army launched an Environmental Impact Statement process to study the situation and come up with solutions. After three years of public comment and analysis, the Army in 2022 chose to build a natural gas-fired system to generate heat, and to buy more power from Golden Valley Electric Association.
Meanwhile, Doyon, the contractor and owner of the plant, continued operations.
Virginia Supanick is the Administrative Manager for Doyon Utilities. She said in an email response that “The Central Heat and Power Plant has been updated substantially over the years and already meets the Executive Order’s objectives of reliability, fuel security, and mission assurance for Fort Wainwright.”
On Jan. 27th, 2025, the Army decided to revisit the heat and power plant issue and began work on a Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement. That was one week after President Trump issued an executive order titled “Unleashing America’s Energy” that promoted greater use of fossil fuels.
“Today, we're taking historic action to help American workers, miners, families, and consumers,” he said in an April 2025 ceremony at the White House attended by a roomful of coal-industry workers and other invited guests. “We're ending Joe Biden's war on beautiful clean coal once and for all…”
He added, “ I call it beautiful clean coal. I tell my people, ‘Never use the word coal unless you put “beautiful clean” before it. So we call it clean coal.”
Fort Wainwright officials have declined requests for an interview about why the Army decided to reconsider the decision to replace the coal-fired power plant with a natural-gas-fueled system. A Fort Wainwright spokesperson said in an email reply to questions last year that the reason is related to dwindling supplies of Cook Inlet natural gas.
A high-ranking Army official alluded to that rationale in an email response to questions last month. David Guldenzopf is director of environmental quality for the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment. He said in an email that the Army reviewed its earlier decision to replace the old heat and power plant in response to Trump’s executive order.
Guldenzopf said the review “is being done in consideration of current requirements and technologies, as well as the future availability of resources, including natural gas.”
Officials at both Fort Wainwright and Department of the Army declined to respond to questions about whether more upgrades are planned for the old power plant. Or whether the Fairbanks-based Interior Gas Utility getting its gas from the North Slope addresses the Army’s concerns about Cook Inlet-sourced gas.
