Pipeline proposal not presented

The details of a proposed natural gas line to run from Lamar County to the northern part of Pike County were not shared at Wednesday’s board of commission meeting. According to Randy Schultz, chairman of the Pike County Development Authority, the presentation was contingent on whether Atlanta Gas Light provides a firm number as far as the price of the project. At Thursday’s meeting of the Development Authority, Schultz announced it is significantly lower than original estimates at under $1 million. ’Some things are still up in the air, namely the price,’ Schultz said. ‘The cost just came down significantly – which is good – but we still can’t get a firm price. Unless we have a firm number, we are not going to the commissioners meeting. The first thing they are going to ask is how much is this going to cost. We may get that number today, we may get it Monday, but we need all the information together.’Schultz said that since they began working with Atlanta Gas Light, several money-saving deals have been made.’During our negotiations with Atlanta Gas Light we asked for a 4-inch gas line but they wanted to install a 6-inch gas line so they agreed to put in a 6-inch line at 4-inch prices,’ he said. ‘They gave us five years to recoup money from anybody that hooks into gas line. If a company hooks on and uses a whole lot of natural gas, we will get a credit for that. We also negotiated a 10-year payback instead of a 5-year payback because the economy is bad right now and they finally agreed to that, too.’Schultz said the gas line project will help bring industry to Pike County by providing gas to Etheridge Mill Industrial Park and the county industrial park in the northern end of the county.