Attorney General Paula Dow has sued Able Energy for not delivering oil that customers had pre-paid contracts for. (image: pressofatlanticcity.com)

Following the completion of its investigation, the New Jersey Attorney General’s Office has filed suit against Able Energy, a heating oil company based in Rockaway that has been accused of failing to deliver oil to customers who had pre-paid contracts, the New Jersey Star-Ledger reported today. Since February 1, the state’s Division of Consumer Affairs has received more than 60 complaints from Able customers.

Customers complained that scheduled heating oil deliveries never arrived, or were only small amounts of as little as 20 gallons. Able Energy’s president, Louis Aponte, has said that his company intends to fulfill its contractual obligations, and reached an agreement with competitor Dixon Bros. to transfer the accounts of 2,000 customers.

“These customers were literally left out in the cold,” said Attorney General Paula Dow. “Able’s customers were left to fend for themselves…when the company abruptly stopped making deliveries.”

The lawsuit seeks restitution for customers, and Able could face civil penalties of up to $10,000. Affected customers may still file complaints with the Consumer Affairs office.

Able Energy is not the only heating oil company under fire from a state’s attorney general. HeatingOil.com has reported this week that Martha Coakley, attorney general of Massachusetts, has filed a complaint against Astrofuel LLC, which is accused of fraudulently charging customers, and Connecticut attorney general Richard Blumenthal is still working to distribute repayment to Connecticut heating oil customers defrauded by F&S Oil last heating season.

Connecticut’s case against F&S Oil underscores how difficult it can be to get restitution for consumers. More than two years after the fact, consumers are still waiting for checks that will only repay 30 percent of the total value of customers’ losses.

Gault Energy and Verde Energy USA have joined forces to supply electricity to customers in Fairfield County, CT. (image: gaultenergy.com and verdeenergy.com)

Gault Energy, a heating oil and propane provider in Fairfield County, CT, has partnered with Verde Energy USA to expand into the business of providing electricity, reports the Danbury News-Times. Verde Energy USA is an electricity supplier licensed by Connecticut’s Department of Public Utility Control (DPUC). The new partnership will be called Gault Power by Verde Energy USA.

Connecticut is one of 15 states with a deregulated electric power industry, and a number of heating oil or propane companies have established partnerships with electricity providers, said David Chu, director of member services for the Independent Connecticut Petroleum Association (ICPA). According to Chu, companies like Gault Energy “are trying to be…a full-service energy company,” which is “a logical continuation of what they do.”

A spokesperson for Gault Energy, Megan Smith, echoed that sentiment: “Gault is an energy provider, and it made sense to expand to the supply side of electricity.” By working with Verde rather than going it alone, Gault is spared the two-year process of becoming a licensed electricity supplier. Verde is one of 10 providers licensed by the DPUC.

“Gault is really our marketing partner,” said Tony Menchaca, Verde’s chief marketing officer. Only about 15 percent of Connecticut residents have switched away from Connecticut Light & Power Co. or United Illuminating to a DPUC-licensed supplier such as Verde, despite claims by Gault and Verde that consumers could save 10 to 15 percent by doing so. By working with Gault, Verde can now appeal to the 7,500 customers already doing business with Gault.

Verde plans to make several more partnerships with home heating companies in Connecticut and expand into the Mid-Atlantic region. For Verde, it’s an effective way to reach more potential customers. For heating companies, it’s a chance to diversify their offerings and fully provide for the energy needs of their consumers.

For heating oil consumers in states where electricity is deregulated, it’s worth researching whether switching electricity providers can help reduce your electric bills. As heating oil companies expand into electricity providers, you may hear about from your heating oil company, giving you the option of making the switch with a company you already trust.

A Lynn, Massachusetts woman and her children are enjoying a toasty home this weekend, thanks to the charity of a local business. Local news site ItemLive.com reported on Wednesday that single mother of two Leanne O’Loughlin had run out of heating oil and could not afford another delivery. After contacting several assistance agencies for help and being told there would be a long wait before she received any heating funds, she started to worry.

But when she called the local chapter of the Massachusetts Coalition for the Homeless, they were able to get her what she needed—and fast. Almost immediately, she received enough money to buy 100 gallons of heating oil, which will last her through mid-March at least. And while it was a non-profit organization that delivered the funds to O’Loughlin, those funds came directly from a generous business in the community. The Brotherhood Credit Union of Lynn lived up to its name by donating $100 a day during the month of February to the Coalition for the Homeless. The funds for O’Loughlin’s timely 100-gallon delivery came directly from Brotherhood’s donations. “It’s such a great thing that they (Brotherhood) are doing for people,” O’Loughlin told ItemLive. She hopes that her application to Citizens Energy for additional assistance will make its way through the system in time to get her another delivery by the time her 100 gallons runs out.

As we’ve reported previously, government agencies are straining to meet the needs of an increasing number of Americans who can’t afford to heat their homes this season. The combination of cold weather and a touch economic climate have led to more families seeking assistance this season than ever before.

The positive message that we can take away from Leanne O’Loughlin’s story is that, when someone is in need and official channels can meet his or her needs, a neighbor with a big heart often steps in to provide a little extra help.

Clean-up crew at Alum Creek. (image: NBC4 via nbc4i.com)

A Sunday night oil spill in Columbus, Ohio is still under investigation as clean-up crews grapple with a 2.5 mile-long slick floating on the Alum Creek water surface. As reported by the Columbus Dispatch, the oil stretched from Livingston Avenue to the state Rt. 104 overpass.

The leak was discovered around 9 PM as officials responded to reports from Alum Creek Drive and Livingston Avenue of a strong unfamiliar smell. Over 200 gallons of oil had drained into the river from a sewage pipe. The source of the leak is still unknown, but according to 10TV, officials at the scene speculate that it may be coming from a building near Route 104. Reports vary as to whether the substance was heating oil or diesel, two very similar grades of fuel oil.

As reported by Columbus NBC4, the Columbus Division of Fire Battalion Chief David Whiting expects the clean-up effort to be “significant.” A hazardous materials team was called on-site to collect the spill with vacuum trucks and oil-absorbent containment booms. The Columbus Sewerage and Drainage Division is investigating the leak source and the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency is helping with cleaning.

To an observer, the oil types would be virtually indistinguishable if not for the use of dye. Because of the tax-exempt status of heating fuel compared to diesel and other high sulfur-content fuels, the Internal Revenue Service requires that heating oil contain red dye in five-fold concentration. Removing dye is illegal. At this time, it is unclear why the spill was reported as heating oil by the Columbus Dispatch and diesel by 10TV.

Regardless, any kind of oil spill is dangerous because of the volume of toxic chemicals that are directly added to the environment. Even though this spill was small compared to other recent spills nationwide, it is considered major because it affected a main waterway. Alum Creek is a source of drinking water for Westerville, one of Columbus’ largest suburbs.

If the spill does turn out to be heating oil, its relatively small size means it will have a negligible effect on local heating oil supplies and prices.

UPDATE, courtesy of NBC4: The fuel is indeed heating oil, and Capital University near Columbus, OH has claimed responsibility, citing a boiler rupture on its campus.

A heating oil truck entering the Lincoln Tunnel. (image: myfoxny.com)

The Lincoln Tunnel connects Manhattan and New Jersey and is one of the busiest tunnels in the world, carrying nearly 120,000 vehicles a day. Because of the dangers that fire would pose to the structural integrity of the tunnel, and the difficulty that emergency personnel would have reaching any fire, vehicles carrying hazardous or combustible material have long been restricted from traveling through the tunnel. However, Fox 5 in New York City reported on Monday that heating oil trucks have been passing freely through the tunnel, and provided video of a heating oil truck entering the tunnel with ease (see full video below).

Fox 5 was tipped off by a trucker who took photos of what he thought was a gasoline truck in the tunnel, presumably while driving—an ironic safety hazard in its own right. In addition to concerns about oil spills and fires, the presence of trucks with hazardous or combustible material in the Lincoln Tunnel, which is considered a top target of terrorism, raises the specter of a threat to national security.

Yet there was nothing unusual about seeing a heating oil truck in the Lincoln Tunnel, said Ken Rosen of Summit Transport in New Jersey to Fox 5: “I’ve been doing it for 30 years.” It could be that heating oil trucks have been allowed passage precisely because of the fuel’s relative safety in comparison to gasoline. Unlike gasoline, heating oil won’t ignite or explode on contact with a flame or spark.

Nevertheless, in April 2009 the Port Authority updated the rules regarding hazardous materials to clarify that heating oil trucks also fell under the restrictions. While enforcement lagged, the Port Authority issued a memo on February 1 that reminded Lincoln Tunnel personnel that tanker trucks carrying combustible or flammable material were not allowed in the tunnel. Last week, a truck of Ken Rosen’s was turned around when it tried to drive through the tunnel.

Instead of using the Lincoln Tunnel, Rosen’s trucks will now have to cross the George Washington Bridge to get into Manhattan. While it may not seem like much of a detour from Edgewater, NJ, where Rosen’s trucks pick up their fuel, anyone who has tried to drive 140 blocks in Manhattan—the distance between the Lincoln Tunnel and the George Washington Bridge—can guess at the extra time and transportation expenses involved. “It just drives up the cost of doing business in Manhattan,” he said. The burden of that cost is likely to be shared by heating oil consumers.

A garbage truck/snow plow doing its thing on the streets of TriBeCa.

Snow accumulates on a parked bicycle on Wooster Street, with the Canal Street Station post office in the background.

The wet and heavy snow is sticking to everything, including this emergency call box.

With dangerous driving conditions throughout the Northeast, most drivers stayed home today, as shown by this near-empty parking lot.

Looking south down Church St. from Canal St.

The weather reduced car and foot traffic on usually-bustling Canal St. to almost nothing.

]]> http://www.heatingoil.com/blog/snowmageddon-in-nyc210/feed/ http://www.heatingoil.com/blog/123290208/ http://www.heatingoil.com/blog/123290208/#comments Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:55:36 +0000 Zoe Macintosh http://www.heatingoil.com/?p=12329

Aerial view of the Kleen Energy Systems LLC power plant following the blast. (image: Bettina Hansen via Hartford Courant.com)

As reported by Reuters, a natural gas powered-electrical plant near Middletown, CT exploded yesterday, killing five people and injuring a dozen others. It was initially believed that some 50 construction workers were trapped in the building’s rubble, but those reports appear to be inaccurate, as the Hartford Courant has reported that all of them are now accounted for.

In early reports, officials suspected that a gas leak originating from pipes going in to the building was the cause of the combustion, because workers were purging these lines of air as the explosion occurred just before 11:30 in the morning.

The blast was so powerful that it blew out windows from neighboring houses and rocked the ground beneath cars and houses 20 miles away. An investigation is currently underway.

The 620-megawatt plant called Kleen Energy Systems LLC was expected to start operations this summer.

Purging is a standard procedure used to prepare pipes and tanks for the storage and distribution of combustible gases.

Natural gas (mostly methane) is highly combustible for the same reason that it is an excellent fuel: its chemical bonds contain a great deal of energy but are also easily broken apart in the presence of oxygen. When used as fuel, this combustion reaction is sustained in the form of burning which releases energy over time. In an explosion, the gas’ exposure to oxygen is not controlled and its energy is released all at once. When air gets in a gas line, it provides the oxygen necessary for a combustion reaction to take place. The high pressure makes it possible, for the smallest spark—from a malfunctioning piece of equipment, from heat—to produce an explosion.

That’s why it’s so important for pipeline installers to remove all the air from a pipe before filling it with gas. This is done by displacing the air with another, non-combustible gas such as nitrogen. Only when all of the air has bled out is the pipe completely safe for methane.

The Wall Street Journal reported that an official said a propane heater, identified as a “small flame device” by a victim’s son, was the source of the spark behind the plant’s explosion.

Last spring, an explosion at a Slim Jim factory in North Carolina that killed three was also attributed to a natural gas line purging accident. The incident prompted officials to urge the U.S. Chemical Safety Board to adopt emergency changes to the federal safety guidelines for fuel gas purging. As the AP reported in September, the Board’s upper management denied the request, citing jurisdiction issues with the way the change would be applied. Although details behind the Kleen Energy plant explosion are still unknown, it is tragic that only four days ago, the Board voted to approve those recommendations.

Riverhead, NY will host the public hearing on the proposal to eliminate the heating fuel tax. (image: wikipedia.org)

Three Republicans in the Suffolk County, Long Island legislature introduced a bill on Tuesday that would put the county’s residential heating fuel tax to a referendum on the November ballot, reports the Times Beacon Record. The 2.5 percent sales tax applies to all residential heating fuels sold in Suffolk County, including heating oil, electricity, propane, natural gas, and wood. Republicans criticized the tax for placing a disproportionate burden on poorer residents, but the tax’s Democratic defenders said that the county needs that revenue at a time when it faces budget deficits.

According to Bill Lindsay, the Democratic presiding officer of the Suffolk County legislature, the heating fuel tax is part of a much broader effort by the Suffolk County government to create revenue through sales taxes rather than property taxes. Since the Republican proposal does not specify a cut in expenses to offset the lost revenue, repealing the heating tax will force the county to double its property tax, Lindsay said. The bill’s Republican sponsors say they can find expenses to cut if the referendum passes, and point out that the average price of heating oil has more than doubled since the tax was first imposed in 2001.

Suffolk County residents can offer their input at a public hearing on the proposed bill, scheduled for 2:30 pm on March 2 in Riverhead, Long Island.

Blue lanterns along the waterfront in Battery Park City Section of Manhattan create in idyllic scene, but nearby buildings continue to burn dirty residual fuels for heating. (iamge: CVerwaal via flickr.com)

In December, HeatingOil.com reported on some New York City buildings’ use of residual fuel for heating and the detrimental effect of that usage on the City’s air quality. A study by the Environmental Defense Fund found that 9,000 buildings in New York still use No.6 or No. 4 heating oil—cheap, unrefined, and repellently dirty fuels that comprise only 1 percent of the city’s fuel stock but which are nonetheless responsible for 87 percent of New York’s oil-related airborne soot. Since then, city officials have begun to introduce regulations that would phase out No.6 and No.4 oil, though such efforts have been met with resistance—even from the “greenest” corner of Manhattan: Battery Park City.

According to an article published by Downtown Express, the neighborhood of Battery Park City, which occupies Manhattan’s southernmost tip and frequently touts its groundbreaking “green guidelines,” is home to at least six buildings still burning No.6 or No.4 fuels. All of the buildings were built before the implementation of the guidelines—which have helped to make BPC one of the cleanest neighborhoods in New York—and thus have expressed no intention of converting their furnaces to accommodate cleaner- burning No.2 heating oil.

Battery Park City lies on the bank of the Hudson River, on the Western side of Lower Manhattan. (image: z.about.com)

“It would make sense for them to look at [heating oil] seriously and set an example for the rest of Lower Manhattan and the city,” said Catherine McVay Hughes, vice chairperson of Community Board 1, referring to the several dozen other buildings in Lower Manhattan that burn No.6 and No.4 fuels. However, at the moment, there is little that anyone can do to force the offending buildings to replace their old furnaces with new ones.

According to Jim Cavanaugh, president of the B.P.C. Authority, the authority cannot force buildings to switch to a cleaner-burning fuel. Moreover, Milford Management, which runs five of the six buildings in BPC that still use No.6 and No.4 fuels, has shown little willingness to spend the $100,000 it would take to replace each furnace with a newer, more efficient model. Lorraine Doyle, who manages Milford’s B.P.C. properties, said she had not looked into changing the fuel type, but guessed that it would be expensive and would require an incentive. “Certainly if it came time to replace the boilers, it would be a huge consideration as to what would be environmentally friendly and what would be most efficient,” Doyle said.

One opportunity for an incentive might come in the upcoming ground rent renewals, when many BPC buildings will face sharp increases in yearly fees to the Authority. The authority could offer to mitigate those increases if buildings add green features. Furthermore, citywide restrictions on heating oil could be coming soon. Mayor Bloomberg addressed the matter in a speech he made last month, and Isabelle Silverman, an attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund, said she expects the city to release phase-out guidelines for No. 6 and No. 4 oil later this year. The Environmental Defense Fund hopes the city will pick 2020 as the deadline for all landlords to convert their buildings to cleaner heating fuel.

Despite considerable upfront costs, switching to cleaner-burning No.2 fuel has numerous benefits not only for residents, but for building owners and operators. There is much evidence to suggest that No.6 and No.4 fuels—formerly used for industrial purposes, like stoking maritime boilers and paving streets—are extremely harmful to the environment. A study released by the city’s health department shows high levels of particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, and other pollutants in areas where many buildings burn no. 4 and no. 6, also known as residual oils. In fact, another study, released only a week ago, suggests that switching away from No.6 and No.4 fuels could save 188 lives per year by lowering the level of pollutants in the air.

There are financial benefits as well. No.6 and No.4 fuels are less refined than No.2 heating oil, and thus much harder on furnaces and boilers. This means more maintenance and a greater need to replace boilers as they wear out; thus, investing in a newer boiler that burns No.2 fuel might very well pay off in the long run.

Any number of the New York City buildings seen here could be particulate polluters that use no.4 and no. 6 residual oils as heating fuel. (image: Kaldoon via flickr.com)

As HeatingOil.com reported earlier this month, New York City is gearing up to introduce regulations phasing out the use of No. 4 and No. 6 heating oil.  And as The Daily News reported Thursday, a new study found that such a move could save up to 188 lives per year. By switching to the much-cleaner No. 2 fuel oil, the city would lower particulate airborne pollutants, saving lives and money.

In his recent “State of the City” address, Mayor Michael Bloomberg addressed the initiative by saying his administration would make “our air cleaner by greening the heating fuels used by schools and large buildings.” Though he did not go into further specifics within the speech, he does have plans to put the aforementioned regulations in place within the next few weeks, an NYC energy blog reported.

Particulate matter found in soot left over from residual oil (another name for no. 4 and no. 6 oils, as they constitute the residue or “leftovers” from the distillation process) can be inhaled deep into the lungs, causing serious health consequences. Michael Livermore, executive director of NYU’s Institute for Policy Integrity, the organization responsible for the study, told reporters Thursday that “In New York City we see higher instances of asthma, bronchitis, impaired lung development in children, and heart attacks, because of PM [particulate matter] pollution.”

The institute’s study explains where residual oil, the source of all this particulate matter, comes from. Heating oil is classified into six types, numbers one through six. While there are a variety of factors that go into number designation, the important thing to note is that the higher the number, the more viscous the fuel, and the more particulate emissions. The heaviest oils, like No. 6, are so viscous that they resemble tar or asphalt at room temperature. No. 2 heating oil, a light “distillate” fuel, is much cleaner, emitting a fraction of the particulate matter of the heavier oils.

As HeatingOil.com reported in December, a study by the Environmental Defense Fund found that there are approximately 9,000 buildings in the five boroughs of New York City that are still using No. 4 and No. 6 oils for heating fuel.  By phasing out this “unrefined sludge laced with pollutants,” the city could save $5.3 billion in health care costs. According to NYU’s study, “over a twenty year period, if full conversion takes all twenty years, a minimum of nearly 600 mortalities will be avoided…however, it is equally likely that the actual number of mortalities will be 1,540 over twenty years…for each year quicker that full conversion is achieved.”

In other words, get cracking New York. The health and economic benefits of such a change would far outweigh the inconvenience and cost to a select number of landlords.