Eversource and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Deal

The 15 years long Eversouce natural gas contract proposal in Waterford is an ever worsening deal for our town. The imagined cost savings of this proposed agreement promoted to Representative Town Meeting members are evaporating rapidly.

A belligerent Russian government has again cut off more countries from its gas exports and Connecticut’s Public Utilities Regulatory Authority (PURA) voted to end its subsidy program, which artificially lowered the costs of natural gas in order to expand its installation and use across our state.

Recent Russian actions are already leading to yet another spike in natural gas prices, as reported by The Wall Street Journal on April

27 in the article, “Russian Supply Concerns Drive Natural-Gas Prices Higher.” And, as reported by the Hartford Courant, also on April 27, in the article entitled “Connecticut utility regulators end state’s natural gas expansion plan launched in 2013, citing rising costs, push for zero emissions”: “PURA commissioners … voted to pull the plug on the program [because] gas prices are soaring, wiping out cost advantages over oil heat, and policies favoring natural gas no longer advance the state’s climate and energy goals that now tilt to offshore wind” further citing the need for “closer scrutiny on how the program did not deliver on its promises to ratepayers.”

It is my hope those who may have previously been in favor of this proposal will seriously reconsider their support in light of the new landscape that now exists around locking our town to the full costs of natural gas use for the next 15 years. RTM members who opposed this Eversource contract proposal raised the likelihood of these detrimental outcomes during our hours of deliberations over the course of two separate RTM meetings. Not unexpectedly, our forecasted concerns have come true.

I welcome the growing consensus that the RTM’s initial vote rejecting this contract proposal — when it was raised for consideration as a 25 years long proposal — was in fact the correct decision for our town. I hope that now, after having seen previously forecasted concerns become reality, a similar reconsideration and reevaluation can again be made by intelligent, open-minded individuals.

Regardless, I strongly implore the concerned, taxpaying citizens of our town to vote in our town’s upcoming referendum on May 31. You may vote by absentee ballot and your normal polling location will be open on May 31 from noon to 8 p.m. Please choose to save us from this misguided decision by voting in large numbers sufficient to overturn this course of action!

Vote No by May 31! Do not choose to lock ourselves to serving Eversource’s profit interests for the next 15 years! Look up the current price of natural gas, then VOTE NO!