Delay on Reynolds Plantation-Lake Oconee pipeline

By Margaret Newkirk

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

State utility regulators delayed action Thursday on a proposed 40-mile, $25 million Atlanta Gas Light pipeline to the Reynolds Plantation resort community and the Lake Oconee region, funded by current AGL ratepayers.

AGL requested the delay earlier this week, after three of five Public Service Commission members raised questions about the project’s necessity and cost.

The gas pipeline utility said it will give commissioners more details about the proposal’s benefits to ratepayers before bringing it back for a vote.

The company says the pipeline will eventually pay for itself and balance out the cost to ratepayers. It also says the pipeline can potentially serve thousands of customers along its route.

Critics call it a boondoggle for which ratepayers will shoulder all the risk.

The proposed pipeline is the largest and most expensive of three “economic development” pipeline projects planned by AGL. The commission approved the other two, which cost a total of $6 million together.

The Reynolds-Oconee pipeline would pass through two counties where AGL is not now legally certificated to install pipe and where local municipal gas companies want to expand.

The pipeline projects are the first batch proposed under a new surcharge on the bills gas customers pay to marketers.

In February, the PSC allowed the utility to bill the cost of pipeline construction deemed to be in the public interest through the surcharge.

The fee allows AGL to bill customers early for construction projects, and to expand its pipeline system without risk to its shareholders.