Can Monkton officials come to an agreement with Vermont Gas Systems (VTGas) over the terms and conditions for a stretch of a proposed 41.2-mile natural gas line that would run through the rural Addison County town?
Monkton selectboard Chair John Phillips said that’s the question that he, his board and the town’s lawyers would try to iron out Monday night.
As the Addison County Independent reported Thursday, the Monkton selectboard voted 3-2 to deny a Memorandum of Understanding between the town and VTGas. Phillips and selectman Stephen Pilcher voted in favor of adopting the agreement, which Phillips said they worked on with the gas company for months.
“I thought it was a good document, and I thought it took care of most of the town concerns,” Phillips said. “The concerns it didn’t address all that strongly were things like wetland and wildlife area, but our feeling was that the issues not covered were dealt with by other groups such as Agency of Natural Resources, which have the time, the money and the expertise to fight that battle.”
The stretch of pipeline that would run through Monkton is part of VTGas’ $86.6 million southern expansion project from Chittenden County down into Addison County. The Monkton board and some of its townspeople, as well as the Hinesburg board, first took issue with the project’s proposed route through the center of their towns. VTGas agreed to reroute the line along the VELCO power transmission corridor.
While businesses in Addison County have hailed the project for the lower heating prices it promises, a group of Monkton townspeople have voiced strong opposition to the project.
Phillips, on the other hand, is a proponent of the memorandum because he says it would ensure that most of the town’s interests were met, and it would save the town money.
“The aim of the MOU is to basically eliminate the need to go through discovery,” he said. “If you go through discovery, to do it correctly, the legal fees and fees for experts go through the roof. We thought that we could come to the same conclusion by agreeing to terms that VTGas would do this and do that.”
Phillips said the board had two main options on its table: It could revise the memorandum to make it more palatable or reject the notion outright and go down the discovery route.
VTGas is now in the second round of the Public Service Board’s discovery process, where the more-than 30 parties on the application have the opportunity to participate in the application process and ask VTGas questions. The Public Service Board is the quasi-judicial regulatory body that has the ultimate say over whether the project is permitted, or given what’s called a certificate of public good.
VTGas spokesman Steve Wark said that his company is committed to working with Monkton to come to an agreement that works for both parties. If, however, the two sides cannot work out their differences, the Public Service Board would do it for them.
“In the unlikely circumstance that the board and VTGas can’t reach an agreement, then the board would decide,” Wark said. “But this is a great opportunity for the town to get all of the things it asked for. We’re going to serve Monkton, and people can save up to $2,000 a year compared to fuel oil, and their emissions will be lower.”
