OKLAHOMA CITY – The state Legislature appropriated $5 million this year to help several small towns that were hit with staggering fuel bills after Winter Storm Uri in February 2021.
Senate Bill 1091, which was signed into law by Governor Stitt on May 26, created a special fund for the state Department of Agriculture to use in providing grants to towns of 3,500 or fewer residents served by an unregulated public utility, in order to “mitigate” the “extreme” and “extraordinary” fuel bills they received during a two-week period in 2021: Feb. 7-21.
Yale, for example, a Payne County town of 1,088 residents as of July 1, 2021, received a $1,409,503 bill from BlueMark Energy for 17,540 “units” of natural gas the city “accepted” during the two-week winter storm (Feb. 7-21) in 2021. That’s equivalent to $1,295.50 for every man, woman and child who lives in Yale, or $2,967 for every one of the town’s 475 utility customers.
“There’s no way that much gas could come through our line,” City Manager Phillip Kelley said.
“We know how much gas was consumed” in February 2021 because everybody has a meter,” former Mayor Richard Adsit said. “We figured what we used for that two-week period and took the rate they were charging for gas at that time; it came to $211,000. We wrote BlueMark a check for that amount as a good-faith payment.”
BlueMark sued the Yale Water and Sewage Trust in Tulsa County District Court for breach of contract. A pretrial conference is set for Oct. 14, courts records show. District Judge Kelly M. Greenough directed Yale to make a written offer to BlueMark by Aug. 30, and the company was instructed to respond to the city by Sept. 30.
Mannford, a Creek County city of 3,269 residents, was invoiced $521,939 by BlueMark Energy for 18,099 “units” of natural gas the town’s Public Works Authority “accepted” in February 2021. A lawsuit BlueMark filed in Tulsa County District Court claims Mannford paid only $71,226 of the bill. That case was still pending on May 9.
BlueMark buys and markets natural gas for more than 100 producers in the Mid-Continent region. The Tulsa-based company has other municipal customers “and they’re in the same boat we are,” Adsit said.
State Sen. Tom Dugger (R-Stillwater) said SB 1091 and SB 1058, which earmarked the $5 million, are intended to help Yale, Mannford and six other communities similarly situated.
The Ag Department is “in discussions with the Legislature’s leadership to get details on how this funding will be dispersed,” Morgan Vance, the agency’s chief of communications, told Southwest Ledger.
The communities “will have to submit information to justify their expenses, specify who they paid and why,” Dugger said. “There will be some type of format for them to follow.”