Partly to mostly cloudy. Low 61F. Winds light and variable..
Partly to mostly cloudy. Low 61F. Winds light and variable.
The Fremont Town Council met on Tuesday to discuss how to handle the natural gas supply shortage. Residents and business owners came to give their opinions and work toward a plan of action with NIPSCO. Council members, from left, Barry Wilcox, William Stitt, Lon Keyes, Linda Fulton, Steve Brown, Attorney Kurt Bachman and Clerk-treasurer Kathy Parsons. Seated are, from left, Chris Pletcher and Jeff Hall of Allegheny Coatings, Commissioner Wil Howard, Town Manager/Judge Chris Snyder and Beck Maggart, Fremont utility clerk.
The Fremont Town Council met on Tuesday to discuss how to handle the natural gas supply shortage. Residents and business owners came to give their opinions and work toward a plan of action with NIPSCO. Council members, from left, Barry Wilcox, William Stitt, Lon Keyes, Linda Fulton, Steve Brown, Attorney Kurt Bachman and Clerk-treasurer Kathy Parsons. Seated are, from left, Chris Pletcher and Jeff Hall of Allegheny Coatings, Commissioner Wil Howard, Town Manager/Judge Chris Snyder and Beck Maggart, Fremont utility clerk.
FREMONT — Fremont Town Council is set to shake things up for NIPSCO due to a lack of natural gas capacity in Steuben County.
Passions ran high Tuesday night at the Council meeting as frustrated residents and business leaders of Fremont discussed how to handle the development discrepancies due to NIPSCO’s control over the natural gas supply. Locals worked with the council to find ideas on how to manage the issue and many courses of action are being taken.
Attorney Kurt Bachman has been working with a larger law firm in Indianapolis to make a plan to submit a formal complaint against NIPSCO to the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission.
“Just to refresh everybody’s memory included, filing a formal complaint against NIPSCO with the IURC arguing various things. One that they haven’t provided, failed to provide reasonable services,” said Bachman.
“Within Steuben County, including the Town of Fremont, NIPSCO’s natural gas transmission and distribution lines are at capacity meeting existing customer usage and modest growth needs. The system cannot accommodate significant growth opportunities without expansion. Meanwhile, there are some areas within the county where it is cost prohibitive for NIPSCO to invest in the expansion of natural gas service until there is sufficient actual customer base growth including confirmed projects and expected usage to support such an endeavor,” said Dana Berkes, NIPSCO public affairs and economic development manager, when asked to comment about the situation in November.
Many efforts made by business leaders and the town council have been rejected because of NIPSCO’s perceived need for capacity in the area. Officials said they have told companies such as Carver Non-Woven, that there is not enough of a need for natural gas in the area. The council and guests in attendance Tuesday came together to show that there is a great importance.
“It’s going to take an effort to try to convince the powers that the services that you provide are adequate, and there’s the need, and the need is specific. It can’t be speculative in this matter, it’s going to take a lot of effort and a lot of work. When you send a strongly worded letter, ultimately, you’ve got to have something to hammer with,” said Bachman. “We’ve heard there’s other options available, but ultimately, in order to move forward we need to try to convince NIPSCO that you’re serious.”
The inability to get gas in the industrial area of Fremont is limiting development and costing the town jobs. Throughout this battle with NIPSCO many are finding inconsistencies with the answers to why the natural gas cannot be supplied.
“For me personally what I find extremely irritating with NIPSCO is their flat out lies about where the gas lines are and what is available. I personally think we pursue this as far as we can with the money that we’ve got. It’ll not only help Fremont, but Steuben County and northern Indiana. It may get other people on other services to notice that hey, you can’t push the people around,” said Barry Wilcox, council member.
Rep. Denny Zent, R-Angola, was in attendance and said he feels very strongly that the elected officials of Indiana should be doing more to help the people with NIPSCO.
“We had the lieutenant governor put a little pressure on some of the folks from NIPSCO and the committee chair of the utilities down there and they gave us the same song and dance. The story is you’ve got to put some skin in the game. The reason is it’s a business enterprise to them and they’ve got a monopoly. I think we need to move forward in any way we can if we need to keep rattling the bushes,” said Zent.
“That somebody needs to take the needed initiative to essentially put them on notice that we retain legal counsel. That this is going to end one way or the other, either in litigation or resolution and so that they understand that there is risk involved. Right now, they don’t have any risk at all. There’s nothing right. We need somebody to sign an engagement letter authorizing this firm to communicate directly with NIPSCO and their legal counsel and let them know that we’re coming one way or another,” said Bachman.
The motion to approve working with a new law firm and sending proper documents to IURC to file a complaint against NIPSCO was passed. Not only is the council working on the formal complaint but there is word of using the community support to pressure on the government officials and NIPSCO to do something about the supply of natural gas.
“This is a common challenge in many rural areas across the state and throughout the U.S., where natural gas service is not available in all locations. In recent years, NIPSCO has worked closely with key stakeholders, economic development leaders and local officials to determine potential new usage parameters and the associated costs in order to consider such infrastructure investment in the area. Currently, the case to expand is not supported by secured economic development and growth in that region,” Berkes said. “NIPSCO will continue dialogue with communities regarding potential infrastructure investments as future economic development and growth is identified.”
Carver Non-Woven has been in conflict with NIPSCO regarding the company’s planned expansion.
“One thing we went through and we applied for the application. The feedback that we got back was that there wasn’t enough monetary justification for the additional gas that we were going to use. Something I would suggest is that you go to every company around here with their three year plans as to what they may use for gas and submit all at once,” said Karl VanBecelaere, Carver Nonwoven
As the ideas were flowing and voices were raising, Bachman reminded everyone of the monetary investments that go into battling a company like NIPSCO and the town needs to show the necessity of increased natural gas.
“If we get that far, here’s a list of all the different industries and the public entities that are frustrated, not having their specific needs met. Therefore it’s not just one small little area that includes this fix, it’s a larger area,” said Bachman. “I definitely think the money is better spent doing things other than ‘how do you get their attention.’ The dilemma is that we have not been able to see a way to do that. But if there’s another way I always would advocate that you spend money on other things besides litigation. It should be the last absolute resort.”
Gary Castor, president of the EDC, brought up the idea of hosting a public forum to ask the NIPSCO representative questions. He said it will help to uncover answers and they will be forced to make changes to better their clients. This notion was met with great support and more loud voices in agreement. Isaac Lee, executive director of the EDC, requested looking into the transmission, distribution, storage improvement charges (TDSIC) to see what NIPSCO is doing with the money.
“Recently NIPSCO just got approval from IURC on a rate case of a 17% increase. So everybody who pays a NIPSCO bill will add an additional cost. A question that should be asked is with the $72 million dollars of annual increase that will generate, ‘what are they doing with it?’ For the last two TDSIC filings we received absolutely no benefit and I would challenge that question as well,” said Isaac Lee, executive director EDC.
With the lack of natural gas supply there is a hold on developing any of the land. This means there will be no progress in jobs and residential building. The EDC sees a decrease in population by the year 2050 if this doesn’t change.
“What does 4,500 people less in Steuben County less cause; lower student rates in school systems, which lowers your rating of the school system, decrease in housing developments, it actually limits or shortens your tax base. So individuals who currently live here will naturally pay more taxes, your water and sewer rates will likely go up because there’s less users on the system. That’s what we’re trying to avoid and if we don’t have a utility like gas, we’re accepting the inevitable,” said Lee.
Agreement chattered through the council room and more support was given by Mike Connell, plant manager of Cardinal IG.
“I think we’re beyond the point where any type of meaningful discussion or rationality could occur. It’s really time to stir the pot, as Representative Zent said, and I think that if you as a council would merely ask the question, I think you’ll find a lot of support in any form that you requested.,” said Connell. “We’ve talked all about growth and development, building homes, adding on supply, I can’t tell you how aggravating it is to capex, big investments in the community, to spend money in the community and have utility provider tell you that you cannot build in your building because there isn’t adequate gas supply.”
After everyone’s thoughts and ideas were heard they moved to think about what the town could actually do. Zent and the others found getting government representatives together and having a larger town council meeting to put pressure on everyone involved would be a a heavy step in the right direction. With an open floor for questions and representatives to give answers to the public on these issues the council was in support and hopes to move forward with the town’s support.
“Well, that being said, Denny, if you can get them here. We’ll be there. I encourage anybody that would like to sign on to this little venture let us know,” said Steve Brown, Town Council president.
Your comment has been submitted.
There was a problem reporting this.
Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd, racist or sexually-oriented language. PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK. Don't Threaten. Threats of harming another person will not be tolerated. Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyone or anything. Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ism that is degrading to another person. Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link on each comment to let us know of abusive posts. Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitness accounts, the history behind an article.
We're always interested in hearing about news in our community. Let us know what's going on!
Sorry, there are no recent results for popular commented articles.