Editorial: It’s a cold day in N.M. when gas isn’t needed

It is understandable that a $38.1-million facility designed to store 2.5 million gallons of liquid natural gas in New Mexico would raise some questions.

Whether it is needed should not be one of them.

Because while cost, design and proposals for rate recovery must be adequately vetted, New Mexico Gas Co. cannot allow a cold snap like the one in early 2011 to bring the state to its frigid knees.

Just two short years ago, natural gas supply fields in the San Juan and Permian Basins froze, so natural gas that had already been purchased by the Gas Company didn’t make it to New Mexico. The company had to cut off more than 28,000 rural customers in some of the coldest parts of the state to survive a total system meltdown.

Some customers went almost a week without heat.

In the ensuing thaw, the Public Regulation Commission found that Gas Company acted reasonably and prudently to avoid a full system collapse and that the events that led to the shutoffs were outside the company’s control. State and federal regulators recommended a storage facility. And the Gas Company has moved forward to mitigate the possibility of a reoccurrence and ensure reliability in its operations.

And yet now that the company’s plan is on the table for massive storage tanks on a five-acre site near Double Eagle II Airport, intervenors are questioning the basic need and usefulness of the facility.

Public Regulation Commission staff, the Attorney General’s Office and New Mexico Industrial Energy Consumers have expressed concerns about the facility and plan to file briefs opposing it in April. These, of course, would be people at the front of the line criticizing the lack of back-up supply in a future crisis.

They have every right — make that duty — to ensure financing and design are thoroughly examined, but whether the storage facility is needed?

Have any of them gone a week in the dead of winter without heat?

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board and is unsigned as it represents the opinion of the newspaper rather than the writers.