Natural gas pipeline opponents say Vermont Gas cannot be trusted because the company delayed public notification of a 40 percent increase in the cost of its pipeline extension through Addison County. The cost increase will be passed on to ratepayers.
Andy Simon of Burlington, a Vermont Gas customer, and dozens of other pipeline opponents came to Montpelier on Tuesday to call on state regulators to reconsider the pipeline extension approved in December.
Simon and the other 50,000 Vermont Gas customers in Franklin and Chittenden counties will bear the cost of the Vermont Gas’ pipeline extension to Middlebury. The company estimates the project will increase rates by 3.8 percent.
“You’re faced with a very difficult choice: invest thousands of dollars to retool your home or business or pay the rate increase. Almost always you’re going to pay the rate increase,” he said. “That’s the problem as a ratepayer with this kind of behavior.”
Vermont Gas says it knew in March that competition for pipeline construction, design modifications and increase oversight were going to increase the cost of the pipeline. In July, it told the Vermont Public Service Board the cost to build the 41-mile pipeline would be $121 million, about 40 percent greater than the cost of the project the board approved in December.
“That’s doesn’t bode well for the trustworthiness of the company that we’re dealing with,” Simon said. “And trustworthiness is something that the Public Service Board has valued in evaluating projects in the past.”
Steve Wark, a spokesman for Vermont Gas, said the company was forthcoming with the cost estimates. He has said the company wanted to get its collateral permits before sending in a new cost estimate to the board. Those permits were obtained in late June.
He said this is the latest negative assertion against the company from pipeline opponents.
“These are the same opponents that have been opposed to it since day one,” Wark said.
The sit-in, which is being called a “fish-in” to describe what pipeline opponents say are “bait-and-switch” tactics by Vermont Gas, was to protest the new cost estimates.
The PSB will now decide whether to reconsider the company’s certificate of public good.
Vermont Gas and the Vermont Department of Public Service say the benefits of the project outweigh the cost. The company says the project will generate new customers about $150 million in energy savings and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The company is preparing for construction. Pipeline opponents want construction halted until state regulators reconsider the costs and benefits of the project. But the Department of Public Service and the company warn delays to construction will further increase the cost.
Vermont Gas is also proposing a pipeline extension from Middlebury to the International Paper mill in New York and later to Rutland. These projects still need state and federal approval.
Some residents who would be affected by phase two of the pipeline are concerned with the way the company has treated residents in phase one.
Property owned by Randy Martin of Cornwall is located along the path of the company’s second pipeline extension proposal. He said he and five of the six other landowners along the route have not signed right-of-way agreements with the company.
Vermont Gas told the Addison Independent that it will not increase the cost of the nearly $50 million project. But Martin said the price is “bound to go up” even though International Paper has agreed to pay for it.
The company says the estimates for phase two were conducted later than phase one and include new cost factors.
Rising Tide Vermont, an environmental group that Vermont Gas alleges is responsible for assaulting an employee during a protest in May at the company’s South Burlington headquarters, gathered about 500 signatures of people opposing the pipeline – including about 450 customers.
