| 110th Year, 36th Issue | Thursday, April 15, 1999 | Sparta, North Carolina |
Frontier Energy, the company that won the right to supply natural gas to Alleghany and several other counties in northwest North Carolina via pipeline, still will not commit to a time frame for providing service here.
With service already started in Elkin and possibly being offered in Wilkes, possibly as soon as later this week, Frontier spokesman Larry Rich said. Service is planned for Alleghany, he said, but he declined to speculate on when the service will be available.
"We're going to move to Alleghany and begin work as soon as we are through in Wilkes," said Larry Rich, spokesman for Frontier Energy. "We have no certain date set to be finished in Wilkes."
Frontier Energy, which is a division of California-based Sempra Energy, won approval from the N.C. Utilities Commission in 1997 after asking for the rights to supply natural gas to Wilkes, Surry and Yadkin counties.
The approval came after a two-and-a-half year legal battle with Piedmont Natural Gas Company of Charlotte. As part of the approval, Frontier also was required to accept the rights to serve Alleghany, Watauga and Ashe counties. Rich said that Frontier has not laid out a route plan for the pipeline to Alleghany, but once the gas arrives, it should be available to anyone who wants it.
The Blue Ridge Parkway, which crosses both routes into the county, poses a problem for the line.
"In our existing pipe line routes, we have not had to deal with Parkway crossings," said Rich. "As soon as we?re through with Wilkesboro, we will decide on which direction we are going on.
"Any kind of time frame would be a shot in the dark at this point," Rich concluded.
Ground was broken on the natural gas system in North Carolina in April 1998.
The transmission portion of the system is expected to take two years to complete, with the majority of the distribution system being built out over five years.
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