Columbia Gas reaches $80M settlement with Lawrence, Andover and North Andover
ANDOVER — Officials in Lawrence, Andover and North Andover announced an $80 million settlement with Columbia Gas to compensate the communities for road restoration and municipal claims and costs resulting from the Sept. 13 gas disasters.
At the Public Safety Center, Andover Town Manager Andrew Flanagan said $57.1 million of the settlement will go toward road restoration, $10 million will go toward expense reimbursements and $12.8 million will go toward claims and losses incurred by the municipalities.
Flanagan said the work on road repairs will begin this summer and take several years to complete. He said the settlement will completely fund the restoration of roads and sidewalks.
“We all wish the number was higher,” said Lawrence Mayor Daniel Rivera, adding that the settlement will cover the money taxpayers ultimately would have had to pay. “But this is what they made as a settlement with us. A company with heart would have done more."
Read more: https://www.eagletribune.com/news/columbia-gas-reaches-m-settlement-with-lawrence-andover-and-north/article_87145094-70e7-11e9-8609-432097e6536d.html
(North Andover Eagle-Tribune)
Related article:
Columbia Gas taxes in Lawrence will increase up to $1.4 million annually
LAWRENCE — Hours after announcing that Columbia Gas will pay the city $43.3 million to repave damaged roads and cover other loses it suffered following the Sept. 13 gas disaster, company president Mark Kempic told the City Council Tuesday night that the utility will pay the city up to $1.4 million more in annual property taxes based on the added value of the 40 or so miles of piping it replaced.
The new payments will increase Columbia Gas's annual property taxes in the city to as much as $3.2 million, up from $1.8 million it paid before the disaster. The city this year expects to collect just under $70 million in real estate and personal property taxes – which is a tax on machinery and infrastructure – so Columbia Gas's payment could amount to nearly 5 percent of the city's total tax levy going forward.
In five minutes of what he called a “high-level overview,” Kempic also said Columbia crews have begun replacing the heating equipment that it tentatively repaired last fall in its “rapid relight” program that was intended to restore service to buildings that lost it in the gas disaster, before winter set in. The company repaired damaged gas furnaces rather than replace them because the repairs took less time, Kempic said.
Columbia crews have replaced 48 furnaces since the work began three weeks ago, Kempic told the council. He said about 550 more will be replaced in Lawrence and the Andovers, which also were struck by the gas disaster.
Read more: https://www.eagletribune.com/news/merrimack_valley/columbia-gas-taxes-in-lawrence-will-increase-up-to-million/article_bf2c6896-19f6-5b65-bcf8-0c2e34ca5d53.html