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- Around 14,000 Houma residents experienced gas outages during recent weather events due to outdated infrastructure.
- Terrebonne Parish officials approved a project to upgrade a main gas line to increase supply and address the issue.
- The parish also plans to upgrade a booster station by year’s end to improve gas pressure alongside the increased volume.
Mark Mayer and his wife couldn’t start their generator for the third disaster in a row. To find answers, the two attended their first council meeting ever.
“This whole area is natural gas and oil and to have a problem like this…” Roxanne Mayer motioned her hands up to show confusion. “I’m glad we came cuz now we know.”
About 14,000 residents of Houma share their plight because, according to Parish President Jason Bergeron, the infrastructure that feeds the gas needs to be upgraded. Residents get their gas from three providers: Atmos, South Coast, and the city itself. The city’s pipes roughly match those of the power grid, and Mayer lives in the Summerfield community. His generator hasn’t started for Hurricane Ida, Hurricane Francine, and the recent freeze.
He said he knew the gas was not getting to his home because every Tuesday, his generator does a test run, and during the freeze, it couldn’t get started. He went and spoke with neighbors, and others were having the same problem.
“A lot of people were very cold at 18 degrees in Terrebonne Parish,” Mark Mayer said. “They were lucky they had heaters, you know, friends brought electric heaters, everybody had their fingers crossed that the power wouldn’t go out.”
Officials say the lack of gas is because during these events, everyone is using their gas, and there simply isn’t enough supply to match the demand. To address this, Bergeron said, the Parish is currently in the process of upgrading these pipes. A key upgrade is to upgrade the main line near St. Charles from a 2-inch-diameter pipe to a 4-inch. This, he explained, will allow more gas to flow from the source and feed the smaller pipes that lead to houses.
The contract was awarded to David Waitz on Monday, February 10, and Bergeron said he expects the work to be completed by at least May. According to Bergeron, there will be no further disruption to the gas during the upgrade to the pip. But that’s only one piece of the solution.
“That’s one piece of it, we not only have to do that, we have to do the in-link, booster station upgrade,” Bergeron explained.
While the larger pipe will allow more gas to flow, the station still has to be upgraded, or more gas cannot be pushed into the system. Bergeron said he hopes to have it upgraded by the end of the year but has no definite timeline at this time.
“It’s two-fold: you have volume and you have pressure,” Councilman Danny Babin said. He said the pipes will allow more gas to flow through, “But then when you upgrade the pump stations – if you will – that’s going to increase the pressure even more because you’ll have more volume now.”
Speaking just outside of the Parish Council Chambers, Parish Manager Noah Lirette told the Mayers that the parish has been looking into the problem and has found that many unpermitted generators and hot water heaters have been installed since Hurricane Ida. These draw from the same infrastructure as those who have proper permitting. An exact count is unknown.
“The system is not built for what’s currently there,” Lirette said. “Development has outpaced the city’s infrastructure.”
He said the permitting process is how the Parish can track how many people are on the system, and they will test people’s load free of charge. Bergeron said these two projects should allow the system to keep up with the current demand, but if people do not get the proper permits, the parish cannot know if it needs to increase the supply, and the problem could return.
“We accounted for 2,000 generators, there’s probably 6,000,” he said. “If people continue to get generators and continue to do tankless hot water heaters there’s going to be an imbalance.”