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Chester Gas and Public Property Committee discusses adding an employee

Posted September 09, 2014 11:00 pm

By Pete Spitler The Herald Tribune

CHESTER -- With winter approaching and having to meet new obligations from the Illinois Commerce Commission, the Chester Gas and Public Property Committee discussed adding a new full-time employee to its gas department during a Tuesday meeting at Chester City Hall.

Department Superintendent Jeremy Homan said an audit from the ICC this spring showed a desire to implement a plan to test sections of the city for natural gas leaks more often.

The ICC also recommended replacing 240 gas meters due to age every year over the next seven years.

"Right now, they are at the very beginning stages of entertaining the idea and the mayor (Tom Page) was in (the meeting) when we were talking about this," Homan said of adding an employee. "With those two items that (the ICC) is mandating us to do, I'm at a point where I can't fulfill those obligations with just two guys."

Chester Alderman Dan Ohlau said Chester's natural gas system was installed in 1959.

"Natural gas systems are pretty resilient to time, but we want to be proactive in getting out there," he said. "We have outside people doing our leak surveys every year, but if we can cover more of the town, with our new device, and stop these small leaks before they become serious, that's what we want to do."

Tuesday's discussion came as the one-month anniversary of the Aug. 16 natural gas leak incident on Swanwick Street approached.

Although the incident resulted in no injuries, it did cause the evacuation of dozens of homes in a four-block radius and the shutting off of nearly 500 gas meters.

Homan previously told the Herald Tribune that he worked 30 hours of overtime during the situation.

"One of the fixes for that (gas leak situation) is to put more valves around town to isolate smaller sections," Homan said. "We have looked into it for more highly-populated areas around town."

In the Sept. 2 Chester City Council meeting, Mayor Tom Page said the city was still compiling the costs incurred as a result of the leak.

"I think, for a town our size, we can easily handle three employees," Homan said. "Everybody is entertaining the idea and it will be brought up at a city council meeting soon.

"It's for everybody to decide, not just us."

Homan also said the department has made three of its four purchases of natural gas futures, which vary daily by price.

"Our main concern is making sure we have enough gas for our customers," Homan said. "This will bump us up to two-thirds of our usage.

"We don't want to be too high and we don't want to be too low."

Homan said the city has 120,000 British Thermal Units (BTUs) of natural gas currently in storage and purchased 52,000 BTUs this summer.

"It's not really a set number, but we average, per month, between 60,000 and 70,000 BTUs during the winter," Homan said. "Between what's in storage and what we've purchased, we hope to get through the winter.

"We're trying to save the customers money, but if we buy too much, we get shot in the foot."

Preliminary winter predictions have indicated the possibility of another harsh winter in Illinois this season after the state was hit with the worst winter in 20 years last year.

In August, Farmer's Almanac, which boasts about an 80 percent success rate in its forecasts, predicted below-normal temperatures for three-quarters of the nation.

"It's all weather-driven," Homan said of natural gas prices. "We can look at what the Farmer's Almanac says and listen to the old guys with suspenders and go that route, but it's really a guessing game."

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