Charleston, W.V.
Mike Pachkin
Pachain, D-Kanwa said, bill, HB 4010, will require utilities to alert customers when the outage is outage. The more especially the bill “when there is a planned electricity, water, or gas outage, or if there is an accident, will require utility services to contact the retarders.”
Pukhin, who lives in the west and passing through the outage, recalls frustration when a broad natural gas outage occurred when the water filled the lines on November 10, 2023 from the main brake of water. Mountaineer Gas said that lines at a distance of 40 miles filled with water. Some repairs were not completed until after thanksgiving.
WCHS Radio’s 580live with Dave Ellen was a guest on Wednesday, Pukhin said that no one was informed about the incident and many had only one problem when they woke up in the cold after morning.
Pukhin said that he believes that good speed in the bill is good.
“It was a single-sequence in the house which is a good sign, we still have time to pass it,” said Puskin. “I think this is a bill that has bilateral support and it is a bill that you think should already be in the code.”
The bill was sent to the House Committee on technology and infrastructure.
Pukhin said that he feels good about its passage.
“Hopefully, we are running the bill, we get it through the House and through the Senate and we get it at the Governor’s desk,” he said. “I think this is a bill that will protect ratperers from here, people who are paying their utility bills and are worth doing better with their utilities.”
Legal battle continues
Mountaineer Gas and West Virginia American Water Company are in a legal battle, blamed for extensive outages. The State Public Service Commission is conducting separate general checks in the works of utilities.
Moses Skaf
The PSC stated that they would no longer play the role of the court to determine the liability between the two companies, rather, instead, “would focus on reviewing the maintenance practices and what each utility did the appropriate work and during the outage and the procedures after the outage.”
Moses Skaf, senior vice president of climber gas, said his company is cooperating.
Skaf said, “We will continue working with the Public Service Commission and as we have to provide any information in the past, which they need during their investigation.”
Meanwhile, West Virginia American Water has processed the claims of about 500 customers. Some of them received up to $ 2,000 in loss.
There are at least two class-class carvings in the courts from the outage-affected customers.