January 5, 2023
Mr. Kevin Akers, President and CEO
Atmos Energy
5430 LBJ Freeway
Dallas, TX 75240
Dear Mr. Akers:
I write to you today with serious concerns
regarding Atmos Energy’s continued inability to supply adequate natural gas
service to my constituents in House District 101, as evidenced by widespread
gas shortages on December 22-23, 2022.
Amid last month’s freezing temperatures, low gas
pressure caused residents in Grand Prairie and Arlington to lose gas service,
meaning they had no means to heat their homes during dangerously cold
temperatures. I am especially alarmed that the City of Grand Prairie lost gas
pressure to critical infrastructure, including two fire stations. This was
beyond an inconvenience – the fire department had to take extraordinary
measures to prevent water in tanker trucks from freezing so they could continue
to be prepared to respond to a fire.
After hundreds of southeast Tarrant County homes
lost natural gas services during Winter Storm Uri in February 2021, Atmos
assured customers that their completion of fortification projects would prevent
further stability issues. Those assurances were also given to me by members of
your government relations team last year, just as they were provided to local
officials, including the mayor of Grand Prairie.
I am aware of Atmos’ fortification projects for
the Grand Peninsula/Mira Lagos area of Grand Prairie and that those projects
are scheduled for completion early this year. That said, local officials,
residents and myself were led to believe that there would not be a repeat of
critical natural gas shortages in the interim. That was not the
case.
Whatever the reasons for Atmos’ continued inability to deliver adequate natural gas to the Grand Prairie peninsula neighborhoods, they do not explain the additional failure to deliver gas to multiple southeast Arlington neighborhoods that I also represent. The Deer Valley, Glenn Meadows and La Frontera neighborhoods of Arlington also suffered natural gas shortages December 22-23.
As a result of Atmos’ inability to provide
sufficient natural gas, both the cities of Grand Prairie and Arlington had to
take emergency measures and open warming stations for residents who were unable
to heat their homes. Both cities, as well as my office, scrambled to keep
residents up to date as best we could, given that we were working with fairly
limited information ourselves.
For all of these reasons, the investigation the
Railroad Commission of Texas has opened at the request of Governor Abbott is
completely warranted and I look forward to reviewing your response to the
Commission’s inquiry. In addition to the Commission’s questions, I request
written responses to the following:
1.
Why was there a gas
shortage at all? Unlike Winter Storm Uri, which was an extraordinary event that
led to multiple system failures across the state, the December 2022 event was a
relatively brief cold weather snap. In fact, the DFW area was nowhere close to
experiencing record low temperatures. There was nothing especially unusual
about this weather event, which raises serious questions about why Atmos had
such a hard time delivering natural gas supply.
2.
Neither Arlington or
Grand Prairie received proactive communications from Atmos. Nor did my office.
The only communication that occurred is when we reached out to Atmos seeking
answers. When did Atmos realize there was a problem and why were no steps taken
to notify and coordinate with local and state officials?
3.
After I reached out on
the morning of December 23, your government relations officer informed me that
Atmos was utilizing CNG trucks to fortify the supply on the peninsula during
the shortage.
a.
When did Atmos realize
there was a shortage on the peninsula?
b.
When was the first CNG
truck deployed?
c.
Did trucks operate
continuously on the peninsula until service was completely restored?
d.
Trucks operated at one
injection point on the peninsula – is this because there is only one location
suitable for this purpose, or because there were not enough trucks?
e.
According to the City of
Grand Prairie, no CNG trucks were dispatched to the Westchester neighborhood,
which was also suffering from outages – why not?
f.
Were CNG trucks deployed
to the affected Arlington neighborhoods? If not, why not?
4.
Please describe your
company’s communications to residents and businesses who experienced gas
outages.
a.
Why did Atmos tell the
City of Grand Prairie you were not notifying residents about how to report
outages for fear of getting too many complaints?
b.
Were customers ever
formally informed of the outage and restoration timelines?
c.
Why did Atmos’ social
media posts tell customers to turn down their thermostats when affected
customers were unable to warm their homes above 58 degrees?
5.
Why did Atmos not
prioritize critical infrastructure, such as fire stations, and ensure that
those facilities remained online?
6.
As outages became
apparent, what steps did Atmos take to coordinate with city and state agencies
to mobilize a response?
7.
Why did Atmos raise no
preparedness issues in calls with the Texas Energy Reliability Council, as
Governor Abbott stated in his December 28 letter to the Railroad
Commission?
8.
Did Atmos issue an
emergency curtailment notice to industrial users to nearby industrial customers
in order to increase residential gas supply? If not, why not?
9.
What was the specific
reason for the inadequate supply in the southeast Arlington neighborhoods? When
I spoke with your government relations official on December 23, he said the
Grand Prairie issues were related to inadequate supply relative to demand,
whereas the Arlington shortage was due to a “technical issue” that your
technicians were trying to figure out. What happened,
exactly?
10.
What is Atmos’ plan to
compensate customers who were without adequate natural gas to heat their homes
and power their hot water heaters, ovens and stoves?
11.
What is Atmos’ plan to
compensate the City of Arlington and City of Grand Prairie for the
unanticipated expenses incurred?
12.
What, if any, assurances
can you provide my constituents that there will not be a repeat gas shortage
this winter or in the future?
13.
Why has Atmos repeatedly
refused to answer basic questions from the public and the news media about this
episode – what happened, why it happened and will it happen again?
I look forward to receiving your responses to
these questions, and to working with you to ensure this is never
repeated.
Sincerely,
Chris Turner
State Representative
Chairman, House Committee on Business &
Industry
CC: The Honorable Greg
Abbott, Governor
The
Honorable Christi Craddick, Chairman, Railroad Commission of Texas
The
Honorable Will Metcalf, Chairman, House Committee on State Affairs
The
Honorable Craig Goldman, Chairman, House Committee on Energy Resources
The
Honorable Ron Jensen, Mayor, City of Grand Prairie
The
Honorable Jim Ross, Mayor, City of Arlington
Arlington
City Council
Grand
Prairie Council
Mr.
Steve Dye, City Manager, City of Grand Prairie
Mr.
Trey Yelverton, City Manager, City of Arlington
