BY DAVID REAGOR
Los Alamos County Councilor
We have been hearing a great deal about a problem with the natural gas system at Elk Ridge Mobile Home Park. The new owners of Elk Ridge are a large national corporation, Yes! Communities, that seem determined to make a poor first impression in Los Alamos. They have proposed a propane conversion that is upsetting the residents. In general, propane is for areas that are not near an existing natural gas system. It is easier to run regular deliveries of propane than to build and maintain a long gas pipeline distribution system for a rural home. A rural site also has adequate space to place the tank a safe distance from the house and vehicles. At Elk Ridge they have little space for these tanks and have an existing gas system connection. In addition, propane will be much more expensive than natural gas. This is all without a discussion of who is paying for the conversion.
The best solution is to rebuild the natural gas system in Elk Ridge. Just replace the defective gas lines with new lines. If Yes! Communities concedes that we own the current system and gives the county a maintenance easement, then we are ready to go. The county can pay for the new lines and recoup the infrastructure investment over decades of service in the normal manner of our utilities.
The unstated issue is that we have a Los Alamos Climate Action Plan that will turn off our natural gas by the year 2070. The natural gas infrastructure discussed above will last much longer than 2070 and would be turned off before its lifetime is up. This is an underlying issue that we need to address now. Just drop the natural gas ban and indefinitely continue service to all our residents. We then maintain the commitment to new infrastructure for other neighborhoods should other maintenance issues arise. In 2022 the European Union abandoned zero carbon and endorsed Natural Gas as a green energy source. Our county can just copy the EU. If rich people in Los Alamos County want to zero their Carbon impact they can do it with solar panels, batteries, and electric cars. Then they can feel good about themselves and leave our low-income residents to their inexpensive reliable natural gas.