By DAN MORIARTY
Staff Writer
WESTFIELD – Residents of Darby Drive are seeking to have the Gas & Electric Department extend a natural gas line down their street.
John F. Keefe Jr., of 12 Darby Drive, presented a petition signed by 12 residents of the 21-lot subdivision located off Southwick Road to the Municipal Light Board Wednesday, March 7 seeking gas service. Keefe said the petition indicates that those 12 residents would connect to the gas line within a year of it being extended into their neighborhood.
Keefe said it is frustrating knowing that the gas service along Southwick Road is just a few hundred feet from his residence, but that he has no access.
“We understand that there are limited funds for expansion,” Keefe said. “We want to get to the front of the line to show you we’re serious.”
WG&E General Manager Dan Howard said the gas division has a limited construction budget and an increasing demand for natural gas as the price of oil continues to increase.
“We do have limited resources, so we’re trying to do a controlled expansion,” Howard said. “We are in the business of expanding that service and selling (natural) gas.
“We have an awful (high) demand for natural gas, people want it extended into their neighborhoods, so we’re trying to get residents of neighborhoods to ban together, such as you’re doing,” he said.
Howard said the municipal utility is developing a new program to prioritize gas service expansion based on several factors, including the construction cost and projected volume of gas consumption, both of which factor into the cost/benefit analysis for the department.
“We’re rolling out a new program in a couple of weeks to get people to really commit to (connecting to newly installed gas lines),” Howard said.
Howard said that the mild winter may hasten the start of the department’s construction season.
“As soon as the asphalt plants open, we’ll start our construction season,” he said. “It’s been a mild winter, so there is no frost in the ground.”
The issue of extending gas lines into neighborhoods, without a firm commitment by residents to connect to the new service is related to another policy recently modified by the MLB
The MLB voted at its Feb, 1, 2012 meeting to modify the municipal utility’s policy of extending gas service from existing gas lines to residences.
The board approved a one-year trail of the policy that will allow the Westfield Gas & Electric management team to install gas services based upon the projected volume of residential consumption and return of the utility’s expenditure to bring gas service to the residence.
WG&E General Manager Daniel Howard had requested the board to review the existing policy of unrestricted gas service installation. Howard said that there has been a sharp increase in the number of residents seeking gas service, in particular since the Oct. 29 snow storm that cut electrical power for many residents for five days of more.
Howard said the utility has a $100,000 budget for gas line service installation, but has spent $350,000 on providing residential gas service.
Howard said that it costs the same to extend gas service to a residence with high volume gas consumption as it does to a residence with a low demand. Residents using gas for heat, hot water, and cooking use sufficient volumes of gas to generate revenue to quickly recoup that utility’s investment in extending the gas service line.
Conversely, residents who will have limited use of the gas, just for cooking, or a gas fire-place or for an emergency generator, may not use sufficient gas to cover the cost of extending the line, meaning that the utility does not recoup its investment.
The issue came to light after the October storm, when many residents with oil heat and hot water requested a gas line to operate emergency generators.
Dan Moriarty can be reached at [email protected]
