Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, August 23, 1993 TAG: 9308240782
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Dwayne Yancey
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Turn on the burner on your stove and the natural gas piped into your house flares up into a blue flame.
But when two institutional behemoths - a utility and city hall - turn up the heat on each other, the controversy burns white-hot.
For citizens trying to keep track of the dispute between the City of Roanoke and Roanoke Gas, and figure out where they fit in, here's a guide to the gas business:
Networks of pipelines carry the gas across the country. The gas Roanoke Gas buys comes from off-shore wells in the Gulf of Mexico.
Most of America's natural gas comes from Texas and Louisiana.
Roanoke Gas buys its gas from two distribution companies - Comumbia Gas, which has a line running from West Virginia to Washington, and East Tennessee Natural Gas, which has a line running from Knoxville to Roanoke.
30% of the gas enters from East Tennessee and enters the Roanoke Gas system at four stations: Elliston, Sugar Loaf, Clearbrook and the 221 substation near the Forest Edge subdivision.
Roanoke Gas has about 836 miles of pipeline. Of that, about 386 miles are within the city.
On a typical summer day, Roanoke Gas sells about 10 to 12 million cubic feet of gas.
On a peak winter day, Roanoke Gas sells about 80 million cubic feet of gas.
THE LOOP LINE: If the cross-country pipelines are the natural gas equivalent of an interstate highway, the gas next enters Roanoke's "loop line," a pipeline system that encircles the Roanoke Valley.
Metering stations: To move the gas cross-country, the gas is compressed to about 475 pounds per square inch. As the gas is transferred from these cross-country pipelines and moved toward residential use, the pressure must be reduced. To begin that process, Roanoke Gas operates eight "metering stations," which reduce the pressure and monitor the gas for impurities.
INSIDE THE LOOP: From the "loop line," smaller lines veer off into a spaghetti-tangle of ever-smaller pipelines to ship the gas into residential areas in the Roanoke Valley.
Company headquarters: The gas company's nerve center: Its "system monitoring facility" on Kimball Avenue keeps track of gas pressure around-the-clock.
And why was the city interested?
The city saw selling gas as a good way to make money.
i So it wanted to explore what would have been involved if had exercised its right to buy Roanoke Gas Co.'s pipelines withinu the city limits and "the assets needed to serve the city."
What would that have meant?
According to Kit Kiser, the city's utility director:
The city would have bought the pipelines within the city limits that deliver gas to city residences.
It would not have bought the major transmission lines that pipe gas through the city and into other jurisdictions.
Instead, the city would have bought "capacity rights" on those big lines, just as other localities now buy "capacity rights" to pipe their sewage through city-owned sewer lines.
The city also would have bought "capacity rights" at the Daleville storage plant.
And the city would have bought whatever equipment it takes to operate the gas system within the city - trucks, tools, etc. But it would not have bought the company headquarters, the metering stations, or the monitoring center.
HOW WOULD THIS HAVE WORKED?
The gas company says it doesn't know; it raises the specter of gas company workers losing their jobs and customers not being effectively served.
The city says it's simple. It would have turned around and hired Roanoke Gas to run the parts of the gas system the city would own. To keep track of how much gas the city is buying - for re-sale to users - the city says it would have installed meters at the city limits to check how much gas is coming and going, just the way it does now on water lines that cross jurisdictional lines.
Source: Roanoke Gas; City of Roanoke; World Book Encyclopedia.
by CNB