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The D and E floats of Douglas Harbor may soon be humming with the drone of generators as tenants unplug from the dock rather than face stiff price increases for their electricity.

Port Director John Stone sent a recent memo to City Manager Rod Swope explaining the rational behind a proposed "emergency fee regulation" seeking to raise power rates charged at docks through out the city.

"It has the potential to dwarf the moorage fee increases we have heard so much about over the past few years," Stone said. "We are aggressively brainstorming alternatives to reduce costs and impacts to patrons."

Dan Fernandez lives on D float at Douglas Harbor. He pays a flat fee of about $75 a month for electricity to his float house. Although Fernandez just paid his bill one year in advance, he expects the city will ask for more.

If Docks and Harbors raise "shorepower" by the same factor of five expected throughout the community, Fernandez said, rather than face $375 per month in fees, he'll just unplug his home and run the generator when needed.

"Like living in the woods," he said.

The current power rate was set when electricity was 9 cents per kilowatt-hour, Stone said. Alaska Electric Light & Power was charging 11 cents per kwh when avalanches destroyed the Snettisham transmission line. The private utility expects to raise rates to somewhere around 50 cents per kwh.

To continue the old fee structure during the inflated price would cause an "extreme economic impact," Stone said.

Greg Fisk, a Docks and Harbors board member, called the situation a "budget buster."

The Docks and Harbors Board is expected to take up the regulation issue during its May 1 meeting.

Most boats in Juneau harbors pull power through separate meters. Fisk said several slips in city harbors still go through city meters. It's a mix of metered and unmetered, he said.

Notices were recently sent to boats in transient moorage, according to Docks and Harbors employee Betty Hoff. She said D and E floats in Douglas and all the boats in the Don Statter Boat Harbor in Auke Bay were on the city meter.

Juneau fisherman Dick Hofmann just finished a winter of heavy electrical use redoing the deckhouse of his 45-foot trawler at Douglas Harbor. Soon, Hofmann will have the Standy out fishing and use no city electricity.

"I'm lucky," he said.

If the emergency rate is still going when he returns, Hofmann said he also would use a generator.

It can run all day on half-a-gallon of gas, he said.