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By DAVID ROBINSON and PATRICK LAKAMP News Staff Reporters 10/29/01
Just hours before a record-setting snowstorm hit last November, a serviceman from National Fuel Gas Co. showed up at Theresa Camp's Lackawanna home to shut off her gas.
The mother of four called the utility and pleaded for more time to come up with $300 to keep the heat on. But her time was up, blizzard or no blizzard.
"The heat was turned off for about four days," Camp said. "We all slept on the floor together, with only an electric heater plugged in. That's how we spent the days before Thanksgiving."
Like the Camps, thousands of Western New Yorkers have had to face days without home heating.
National Fuel shuts off service to its delinquent customers at twice the rate as the region's other natural gas provider, New York State Electric & Gas Corp. National Fuel is 76 percent more likely to do so than the three other major utilities in upstate New York as a group, a Buffalo News analysis shows.
The Buffalo-based utility stopped service for more customers in the first eight months of this year - 28,756 - than it did for all of 2000 - 27,400.
That increase, National Fuel said, reflects Western New York's weak economy and last winter's record-high gas prices.
"We've administered a fair and consistent collections policy," said Julie Coppola Cox, a National Fuel spokeswoman. "It was a very difficult winter for our customers. Customer bills were nearly doubled during the peak of the winter heating season."
National Fuel already is under scrutiny by the state Public Service Commission, which said last month that the utility appears to have "directly contributed" to the death of a 58-year-old Buffalo woman when it refused her repeated pleas to turn on her gas. Velma Fordham was found frozen to death in her unheated Buffalo apartment last February.
The commission wants National Fuel to review its records of the last six years and contact and pay penalties to customers improperly denied service under certain conditions. The commission has asked the utility to explain why it should not make payments to those people.
Nobody knows how many there may be.
So far this year, National Fuel has shut off service to 6.3 percent of its residential customers who fell behind in paying their bills.
The other major upstate utilities, which provide electricity as well as natural gas, have posted lower shut-off rates this year:
New York State Electric & Gas, which provides gas service to parts of Niagara, Orleans and Cattaraugus counties, has about a 2.8 percent shut-off rate.
Rochester Gas & Electric has shut off 2.9 percent of its customers for being delinquent.
Niagara Mohawk Power Corp. has a 3.4 percent rate.
The Public Service Commission, which regulates electric and gas utilities, does not find National Fuel's shut-off rates troubling.
"They don't necessarily immediately raise a flag and say there's something going on here," said commission spokesman David C. Flanagan. "Utilities, in general, are a little more aggressive on the gas side."
Others are alarmed.
"National Fuel appears to have a higher termination rate than the other companies, and it should be investigated," said Gerald A. Norlander, executive director of the Public Utility Law Project in Albany, an advocacy group for low-income residents.
Shut-offs done "quite a bit'
As gas prices soared last winter, thousands of National Fuel's customers found themselves owing hundreds or even thousands of dollars in heating bills without the money to pay.
"It looks like they used termination quite a bit to deal with it," Norlander said.
Ohio and Pennsylvania forbid utilities from cutting off service during cold-weather months - but not New York.
Customers here are still feeling the shock of last winter's bills.
National Fuel, by the end of August, had 41,559 accounts at least 60 days overdue, a 31 percent increase from the 31,750 overdue accounts at the same time last year, Cox said.
Debts that the utility doubts it will ever collect are "significantly higher" this year, although National Fuel will not say by how much.
Some relief may be on the way, though. National Fuel's customers can expect to pay on averagealmost 30 percent less this winter, or about $757 to heat their home between November and March, down from $1,052 last winter, according to projections.
But many customers still are trying to pay off last winter's bills. National Fuel tries to work with customers who are struggling to pay their bills, Cox said. It gives them 90 days before beginning collections activities and offers deferred-payment plans and other assistance.
When customers do not pay their bills, National Fuel's other customers assume the extra burden through higher rates, Cox said.
"We don't think it's fair to expect the vast majority of our customers who pay their bills - and those who make difficult decisions in order to pay their bills - to pay more because our uncollectible expenses have increased," Cox said.
Most customers who have their gas service shut off eventually see it restored. Nearly three of every four customers whose service was terminated last year have been reconnected, while 60 percent of those whose service was turned off this year now have gas service again.
"Small kids in the house'
Theresa Camp said she and her children - ages 15, 12, 9 and 6 - felt the sting of National Fuel's shut-off policy during the winter's worst storm.
"I just thought it was not humanitarian," said Camp, 37. "There were small kids in the house. There was a storm. I think they should have put themselves in my position."
Camp said she and her husband, Denis, had paid their gas bills on time for 15 years. But times got tough when the family's pizzeria closed last year.
Cox said the utility warned the Camps three times between Nov. 13 and Nov. 15 that their service was on the verge of being shut off for nonpayment. The family had not made a payment on their heating bill in nine months.
The storm also hindered Camp's effort to apply for aid through the Home Energy Assistance Program, which would have kept National Fuel from shutting off the gas for a month. She drove to the county office that administers the programin downtown Buffalo, but it closed early because of the storm.
The Camps were able to pay $300 to National Fuel on Nov. 22, and the company turned the gas back on at 1:50 a.m. Thanksgiving Day. The couple now has a deferred-payment plan.
In another case, Jennifer Tirado of Sanborn found that even the Home Energy Assistance Program might not be enough help.
Tirado, a single mother of three children, owed National Fuel $757 last October, when the company shut off her gas. The service was restored when she paid $380 the next day and agreed to pay $60 a month toward her delinquent bill and keep up with her current charges.
But Tirado did not make any payments on that plan, so the utility sent her a notice the day after Christmas that it would again shut off her gas service. After waiting another month, the utility sent a second notice.
She filled out the Home Energy Assistance Program forms in March and qualified for $700 in aid, hoping that would keep the service intact despite a bill that had swelled to $2,100.
When Tirado contacted National Fuel in March, however, the utility told her she needed to pay $1,160 to prevent service from being shut off. The Home Energy Assistance Program benefit alone would not be enough. She did not pay, and the utility shut off her gas April 16. By then, her National Fuel debt had ballooned to $2,628.
Tirado said she could not afford the downpayment that National Fuel wanted. She has gone without gas service ever since, and drives her children to her father's home, where they can bathe in warm water.
New York allows utilities to turn off service in cold-weather months.
But state law includes safeguards and requirements that, for the most part, have kept upstate residents from freezing to death.
"We've had comparatively few problems. Most of them stem from people not paying their bills," said State Sen. Dale M. Volker, R-Depew, sponsor of the "Utility Bill of Rights" legislation that became law 20 years ago. "Unfortunately, some things just slip through the cracks."
In states that forbid utilities from stopping service during cold-weather months, the restriction means that tens of thousands of residents who had their service cut off during the spring and summer are now scrambling to make arrangements to have it turned back on in time for this winter.
Volker said he has not sold on the idea of a cold-weather moratorium, although the Fordham case may prompt lawmakers to review the existing law.
"The problem with an outright moratorium is that it's an invitation to deadbeats," he said.
Prompt dialogue advised
National Fuel's Cox said consumers struggling to pay their bills should not wait long to contact the company. "The difficult situations are with those customers who have not addressed the problem and then the service is cut off. That puts them in a disadvantaged position."
Consumer-protection laws that regulate service shut-offs and social services programs should keep most people from having their gas service shut off, Norlander said.
"If they send out a termination notice, HEAP is supposed to step in with a payment to prevent termination," Norlander said. "Those payments need not cover the full balance due."
The company also is supposed to try to negotiate an affordable deferred-payment schedule with the consumer. If the customer fails to make the required payments under that deferred-payment plan, the welfare system is supposed to step in to provide assistance and prevent service from being turned off.
"It really shouldn't happen, but in some respects, the safety net has been frayed a bit," Norlander said. "We have a gap here between the ideal and the reality, and a lot of it comes down to consumers being informed about their rights."
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CORRECTIONS
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10/30/01
A graphic about gas service shut-offs that appeared in Monday's Sunrise and Niagara editions understated how often National Fuel Gas Co. terminated service. National Fuel terminated service for non-payment from January 2000 through August 2001 on 6.2 percent of its residential accounts, not 5.4 percent.
The graphic also overstated how many gas customers National Fuel has. National Fuel has 453,643 gas customers.
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