Founded in 1941, Matanuska Electric Association, Inc. (MEA), is Alaska's oldest existing and second-largest electric cooperative. MEA is owned and operated by its more than 51,000 members and governed by bylaws and articles of incorporation that are voted on and approved by the membership. Covering more than 4,300 miles of power lines, MEA's service territory extends north just past Trapper Creek, over to the mighty Matanuska Glacier and south to Eagle River in an overall service area greater than the size of West Virginia. MEA's new 171 megawatt natural gas generation facility, the Eklutna Generation Station (EGS), has been fully operational since May 2015. The completion of the facility marked the cooperative's transition to a vertically-integrated utility in control of its own generation, transmission and distribution system.