Roanoke Gas Company (RGC) has the opportunity this June to do the right thing for its 62,000 customers by exiting its contract with Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) by June 30th. RGC intends to pass the cost of its $112 million contract for capacity with MVP onto the ratepayers of the 55,000 households, schools, businesses, hospitals, places of worship and other facilities which it serves.
Many of these households and schools are within low-income communities and communities of color that have been disproportionately impacted by the current COVID19 pandemic.
Additionally, Roanoke area residents and families are already supplied by 2 gas pipelines, the Columbia Gas and East Tennessee pipelines. The investment in MVP is intended to expand RGC’s service area and is not needed to supply Roanoke.
Therefore, RGC plans to push the cost of this destructive, unnecessary pipeline unjustly onto its Roanoke customers so that the company and its shareholders can make a profit.