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From Order: 

[ *** ] As a preliminary matter, before the Commission addresses the merits of WGL’s Petitions, the Commission invites WGL to present, as part of its semi-annual STRIDE filing (expected August 1, 2024), any evidence and argument supporting its positions. WGL is further invited to sponsor witnesses in a future hearing to consider its semi-annual filing. Other stakeholders, including Staff and OPC, are invited to present rebuttal testimony and comments.

As part of its testimony, WGL is specifically invited to address the following items, based on issues raised by WGL in its Petitions: (1) Provide a more detailed explanation of WGL’s safety concern that “if that customer’s STRIDE-eligible service line was scheduled to be replaced in conjunction with the associated STRIDE-eligible main line, the old service line would be disturbed and could not be reconnected to the new main line without increasing risk of a leak.”3 (2) Explain if there are situations where WGL would transfer an old service line to a new main line in order to abandon the old main line. (3) Provide quantitative timeline data by STRIDE plan year for past main line replacements after STRIDE plan approval, including but not limited to: (a) a range of historical durations for STRIDE main line replacements that include pre-construction activities such as site preparation etc.; (b) the actual main installation; and (c) the transfers of service lines following new main line installation and the abandonment of the old main. This quantitative timeline data should clearly demonstrate the past impacts that a 180-day notice provision would have had in delaying STRIDE work. The data should show how many miles of main lines WGL has abandoned in less than 180 days from STRIDE program approval by the Commission, as compared to total main abandoned, in addition to any other quantitative main line replacement data that support WGL’s arguments in its Petitions. (4) Provide more information on WGL’s statement in its Petition with regard to service line replacement programs, that the “degree of risk [is] based on the material of the pipe and a variety of other safety-related factors.” (a) How WGL assigns risks to individual service lines in service line replacement programs; (b) Each service line’s risk, ranked individually or by groupings such as all similar service lines in a neighborhood; and (c) An explanation of how these risk rankings for service lines are used in scheduling individual service line replacements in STRIDE service line replacement programs. (5) Provide quantitative timeline data for past STRIDE service line program replacements after STRIDE plan approval that demonstrate how strictly WGL replaces individual service lines in service line replacement programs in any given STRIDE plan year based on the risk rankings of service lines. (a) This quantitative timeline data should clearly demonstrate the total number and percentage of service line replacements in service line programs that were not completed in priority order by risk ranking in past STRIDE plan years. (b) Based on the results of this quantitative timeline data, WGL should explain whether its own scheduling practices are “forego[ing] the opportunity to promptly replace a STRIDE eligible service line that WGL determined, and the Commission agreed, poses the highest degree of risk,” or if there are practical reasons for not scheduling service line replacements in risk priority order in any given STRIDE plan year.

IT IS, THEREFORE, this 15th day of July, in the year Two Thousand TwentyFour, ORDERED that WGL and other stakeholders are invited to provide additional evidence and argument as described above.

Order No. 91223 (07/15/2024) 
9708 (06/16/2023) 
(Washington Gas Light Company’s Application For Approval Of A New Gas System Strategic Infrastructure Development And Enhancement Plan And Accompanying Cost Recovery Mechanism)