White Lightning Axiom: Redux

It's not looking good for people who have had their gas shut off this summer due to unpaid bills from last winter. PGW is not allowed to disconnect service during the winter months for the elderly or families with small children.

Officials of PGW say they did not shut anyone off for nonpayment last winter, even though about half of its 500,000 customers are delinquent, are occasionally late, or do not pay at all. As of Sept. 23, PGW had 16,328 customers listed as shut off for nonpayment, down from 17,315 customers in that category in the previous year.

But once that service is shut off, it does not have to be turned back on until the bills are paid. That bodes ill for many on fixed incomes who just let the bills ride through the summer. Even if they do manage to get the service back on, it will certainly be shut off the following spring. Then their debt will most likely be insurmountable:

"When the bills go up, my check doesn't go up," said Baker, who is receiving help from the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, an advocacy group. "I'm on a fixed income."

Throughout the region, residents like Baker are trying to cope with what experts are predicting could be a costly and perhaps deadly winter-heating season. Some are joining energy-buying cooperatives. Some are selling or trading prized possessions to weatherize their homes.

With many natural-gas-drilling rigs in the Gulf of Mexico still sidelined by damage from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, federal officials estimate home-heating prices could rise as much as 71 percent in some regions of the country this winter.

PGW attributes its need for this latest increase to the hurricanes - Katrina in late August and Rita in late September. The 19.4 percent increase would follow the utility's 4.9 percent rate hike that kicked in on Sept. 1.

Another utility, Peco Energy Co., raised the rates of 465,000 heating customers in Bucks, Chester, Delaware and Montgomery Counties by 3 percent on Sept. 1, and it expects to seek another sizable increase on Dec. 1, according to spokesman Michael Wood.

It's going to be a long, cold, harsh winter. No matter what the temperature. If you have elderly friends and family in the area, I would recommend pooling resources and inviting them to stay with you for the colder months. A few months of heat is cheaper than a funeral.

That's why PGW is urging the federal and state governments to provide more money for LIHEAP and seeking approval to open a liquefied-gas shipping terminal in Port Richmond along the Delaware River, he said. PGW officials estimate that the terminal would bring $25 million a year in usage fees to the utility, which has more than $1 billion in debt.

"This is a poverty issue, and people are trying to solve it with a utility answer," Oliver said. "It doesn't rest solely on PGW to solve poverty."

Let's hope that the environmental groups feel the bite of the winter before they try to strike this project down. Sometimes the alleviation of human suffering trumps the requirements for the banded stalk marsh reed.