Into Thin Air

By Becky Smith, Massachusetts Water and Clean Energy Organizer Christmas comes early for natural gas companies that collected nearly $40 million dollars in 2010 from natural gas customers for gas that never arrived or got consumed by a home, business, school, hospital, or other end user in MA. Customers are unwittingly signing big checks back to the gas companies for this polluting “gift.” Natural gas leaks underneath Boston and throughout Massachusetts are releasing methane – a very potent greenhouse gas – at an alarming rate. Methane is 20 times more effective at trapping heat in the atmosphere than CO2. “That’s not where we need the heat,” says Loie Hayes, Coordinator of Boston Climate Action Network. “Our members are participating in energy efficiency programs to help them save money on home heating, conserve natural gas, and prevent climate effects from greenhouse gases. Now we learn that leaky gas lines are wasting more gas than all of our efficiency efforts have saved!” Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities assures customers that safety from explosions is their number one goal when it comes to gas leaks, and that leaks classified as explosion possibilities are always repaired immediately. According to the Boston Globe story from earlier this week, they also have in place an incentive program to encourage gas distribution companies to repair leaking pipes. My question: are the incentives enough to end the free-riding the companies are doing on their ratepayers bills? According to a report co-authored by scientists at Boston University and Duke University published last week in the journal Environmental Pollution, about 9 billion cubic feet of natural gas went unaccounted for in MA systems in 2010. This represents about 5% of the Commonwealth’s greenhouse gas emissions. Into Thin Air, a paper released by New England’s Conservation Law Foundation, outlines five specific policies to accelerate the replacement of aging pipe and ensure that existing pipeline is properly examined and repaired, spelled out below. The good news about getting the leaky pipes fixed is that we can reduce the potent greenhouse gas emissions and protect public safety and ratepayers’ checkbooks, all while creating good, local jobs. Clean Water Action will be working with allies at Conservation Law Foundation and the BlueGreen Alliance to get to the best fix. Please contact me if you are interested in joining our efforts bsmith@cleanwater.org Policy recommendations:

1. Establishing Leak Classification and Repair Timelines that provide a uniform system for classifying leaks according to level of hazard and require repair within a specified time;
2. Limiting or Ending Cost Recovery for Lost and Unaccounted for Gas so that companies have an incentive to identify the causes of lost gas and prevent them;
3. Expanding existing replacement programs and adding performance benchmarks;
4. Changing Service Quality Standards to include requirements for reducing leaks on the system;
5. Enhancing monitoring and reporting requirements to give the public and regulators more information.