In the wake of a
December gas scare that triggered a massive emergency response and sent
some people to the hospital, Liberty Utilities recently sent a letter to
Keene customers seeking to reassure them and referencing its plans to
switch to natural gas.
“When Liberty
Utilities bought the Keene facility from NH Gas in January 2015, it was
always our plan to switch from propane-air to natural gas,” says the
letter, which also references a second, smaller incident in Keene last
month. “Natural gas will be more reliable and less expensive than
propane.”
Matt Nanci can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1439, or mnanci@keenesentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter @MNanciKS.
But before converting, the
company must first get approval from the N.H. Public Utilities
Commission. The company expects to file that request within the next two
months, according to John Shore, a spokesman for Liberty Utilities.
“Once approved, we will promptly
work towards converting to natural gas,” Liberty Utilities’ March 21
letter says. “Until then, rest assured that we will continue to operate
the facility safely.”
Two power outages in recent
months at Liberty Utilities’ production facility on Emerald Street in
Keene led to an imbalance in the propane-air mixture sent to city
customers. The improper mixture allows carbon monoxide to form.
The incident on Dec. 19 was much
more severe and dangerous than the February one, lasting 15 hours,
involving 64 fire and emergency medical services departments from New
Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts, and 12 local, regional, state and
private agencies. It also sent four people to the hospital with symptoms
of carbon monoxide poisoning.
The outages were brief
fluctuations in power, lasting just a few seconds, which didn’t give
enough time for the company’s generators to kick in, leading to a
problem with the mixture of air into the city’s gas supply, according to
Shore.
In December, a fault in the
control system led to a failure of the air blowers that create the
propane-air mixture to adjust to the power fluctuation like they were
supposed to, Shore said.
That glitch in the control system
has since been fixed and worked properly in the February incident,
contributing to its quick resolution, according to Shore.
Since Dec. 19, Liberty Utilities
began staffing the facility 24/7, which is what Shore credits for
preventing the latest gas issue in February from escalating.
The switch to natural gas won’t
require significant changes in equipment at Liberty Utilities’ Keene
distribution center, which mixes air and propane, Shore said.
Most of the work will involve modifications to each customer’s appliances, but Shore said those changes will be simple.
“The appliances that are
currently connected to the system … they are all modified (from using
natural gas) to run on this propane-air mixture that we have now,” he
said.
Liberty Utilities serves about
1,200 customers in the city, according to Shore. By switching to natural
gas, he said, the company hopes to add more residential and commercial
customers in Keene.
The company already has 90,000
natural gas customers in the Granite State in a straight line from
Nashua to Laconia, Shore said. It also provides electricity to 44,000
customers around Salem, Hanover, Lebanon, Charlestown, Walpole and
Alstead.
Liberty Utilities is looking into
building a lateral off the proposed Northeast Energy Direct pipeline,
which would be used to supply Keene with natural gas, but the conversion
is planned regardless, Shore said.
If the pipeline is not built, Liberty Utilities has said it would transport natural gas to Keene from elsewhere.
Tennessee Gas Pipeline Co. LLC, a
subsidiary of Kinder Morgan, is proposing the 419-mile interstate
pipeline to carry cheap, fracked natural gas from the shale fields of
northern Pennsylvania to a hub in Dracut, Mass. It’s proposed to travel
through 18 communities in southern New Hampshire, including the Cheshire
County towns of Fitzwilliam, Richmond, Rindge, Troy and Winchester.
Shore said he didn’t know
specifically when the conversion would happen, but said it would be
during a low-demand time; the switch, for example, wouldn’t occur during
winter, when customers rely on service to heat their homes.
Of the recent incidents in Keene,
Shore said, “Hopefully it will accelerate the process (to switch to
natural gas). ... The issues that occurred in the past in December and
in February, they wouldn’t be issues with natural gas.”
In the meantime, he said the
additional measures put in place after the gas scare in December will
prevent an incident like that from happening again.
“We’re very confident that the system is safe and operating the way it should,” he said.
Keene Fire Chief Mark F. Howard
agreed, saying Liberty Utilities’ handling of the Feb. 21 incident was
an example of the effectiveness of the changes the company made.
That day, another brief power
outage at the company’s facility caused one of the air blowers in the
facility to shut down, creating an improper mixture of air into the
propane gas supply.
Crews were able to get the blower working properly again within seven minutes, according to Shore.
The Keene Fire Department checked
different locations across the city where Liberty Utilities customers
are served, but did not find any problems.
The incident was declared under control more than two hours after Liberty Utilities reported the improper mixture of air.
“It was really uneventful,” Howard said.
The day after the December
incident, the N.H. Public Utilities Commission opened an investigation
into what happened. The final report of the commission’s staff about the
event is expected to be released March 31, Shore said.
2 comments:
But of course,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, and who is their parent company????? Tennessee Gas of course. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure that would happen. And the Public Utilities Commission in their pocket. Be it Trump's reality show or the pipeline railroading its way through our area,the only thing that talks is $$$$$$$$$$$$. Yet in the same edition of the news is an article on fracking causing man made earthquakes while it also destroys our water supplies. But sush, be quiet, don't act on that. NED needs to frack its way from PA to NH and beyond....................
Kinder Morgan is pulling out all the stops and padding lots of pocketbooks in an attempt to get this pipeline built. FERC is an absolute joke, they allow submissions of intervenors from other gas companies all over the country in support of this project claiming they would be affected by a negative decision while ignoring the very people who's property and way of life would be destroyed if this project were allowed to gain approval. It's business over lives once again, despite the knowledge that there is no demand for this or need and that it's all about profit for a company going belly up because of numerous lawsuits for safety violations and negligence.
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