Natural gas service expanding in Itawamba County

ITAWAMBA COUNTY, Miss. (WCBI) – Residents, businesses and a school in an Itawamba County community will soon have the option of natural gas service.

Even before the ceremonial ribbon cutting for the gas expansion project, crews were hard at work.

The City of Fulton and Itawamba County have worked for months to bring natural gas service to the Fairview Community.  It will mean 125 families, four businesses and the attendance center will have the option of propane or natural gas. The natural gas will be provided by the city of Fulton.

“The city has natural gas and these rural areas, a lot of them don’t, and we actually give them a choice to have that, the more we can cover the better off the citizens are,” said Fulton Mayor Barry Childers.

Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley says bringing natural gas to rural areas isn’t an easy task.

“We’ve had a bill in the legislature for two years, the propane industry lobbied hard against these bills to allow service to rural areas, they’ve tried to fight us every step, this has been an accomplishment, not only to get the pipe in the ground, but to also beat back relentless lobby by the propane industry to try and kill projects like this throughout the state,” Presley said.

The principal at Fairview Attendance Center says local propane companies have always treated them right, but he does say it will be nice to have an optional energy source that could save tax dollars.

“Our propane people have always been really good to us and on call when we needed them. Looking forward, not only as principal of this school, but also as a community member, looking forward to trying this natural gas out and seeing if it’s as good as everybody says it is,” Principal Benjie Ewing said.

The Fairview community should have natural gas service in place by the fall.

Total cost of the project comes in at $1.8 million. Funding was provided through community development block grants.