Member System Profiles: Charlottesville, Virginia

October 29 - November 1, APGA will be holding its Fall Quarterly Meeting at the Boar's Head Inn in Charlottesville, Virginia. It is being hosted by the Gas Distribution Operations of the Public Utilities Division, a natural gas utility owned and operated by the City of Charlottesville.

Charlottesville was incorporated in 1888. Together with the urban area of the surrounding Albemarle County, Virginia, it has a current population of 130,000. The city can boast that, in 2004, it was rated the “best place to live in America” by Frommers magazine. It is also home to two sites connected to President Thomas Jefferson: the University of Virginia, which he founded in 1825, and Jefferson’s home Monticello. In addition, Ash-Lawn Highland, the home of the 5th President James Monroe, is found in town.

The operation that became the gas works formed in 1856, when a privately owned manufactured gas plant started 150 years ago this year. In 1876, the then-township of Charlottesville took ownership. It remained a coal-fired system until 1951, when natural gas was brought in from the Columbia pipeline. Now, the Public Utilities Division provides gas, water, and wastewater to the city. The gas works serve 18300 customers in Charlottesville and urban areas of Albemarle County.

Watching over the gas operation is Phil Garber, the Assistant Gas Superintendent and Chief Gas Engineer of the City’s gas operation for the past fifteen years. Prior to that, he worked as petroleum engineer for Texaco in New Orleans for ten years. He jokes that “I went from production to distribution in one leap!”

Phil’s fifty-five gas employees have command over 298 miles of pipeline, primarily protected steel and polyethylene pipe. The system was originally cast iron, but all but ½ mile were replaced by 1998. According to Garber, “That last section located on West Main Street in the City has had no problems or leaks, so it is currently just being left in service.”

Charlottesville converted to 100 percent automatic meter reading (AMR) for both water and gas in 2001. This AMR system operates by mobile unit to read some 30,000 meters.

The City government consists of a council of five people, managed by a city manager, who set the utilites rates. Garber says that while the gas department has “gotten complaints (about the high gas prices) in recent years, people seem to understand that the rise in prices isn’t
because of our operation budget.“

To work with this century’s high gas prices, the city has acquired winter storage capacity. Garber remarks “around 60 percent of our winter supply is in storage on the Columbia Gas System.” They buy and inject gas in the summer for winter. The purchase price is passed on to customers thorough a monthly adjustment on bill. The City has a gas relief program for the elderly and others on fixed incomes, and an automatic thermostat rebate program.

As of July 1, 2005, the City has had to deal with a big change when Virginia, which had been the last state in the union whose municipal utilities were not under a state regulatory agency, handed over monitoring of pipeline safety from the US Department of Transportation to the State Corporation Commission jurisdiction for Pipeline Safety.
According to Garber, “this has meant more frequent inspections and more scrutiny than the Federal government gave, since the state has more manpower and has a more restricted, more conservative interpretation of regulations.”

Charlottesville is a member of APGA because of APGA’s effective representation to Capitol Hill, as well as to the Office of Pipeline Safety on things like DIMP, OQ, and the like. In addition, The City used the APGA OQ plan and APGA Public Awareness boilerplate as the basis of their plans.

On the topic of pipeline safety public awareness, State regulators want to see a unified consistant message statewide by all gas operators on pipeline safety for public awareness. Mr. Garber expressed a concern that some utilities will purchase materials from an organization such as the Southern Gas Association with certain messaging, while others would develop their own with different messages. The regulators would be very unhappy with our industry if they see one company saying do one thing if gas is smelled, then another nearby utility saying something else. “If APGA can do anything to get a nationwide standard message that would be even better.”

Originally in September 28, 2006 Public Gas News