ORUD has announced its new president and general manager, Jeff Patterson.
Patterson has been an employee of ORUD for a long time, the natural gas provider said in a press release Wednesday.
The ORUD Board of Commissioners made the announcement on Wednesday, February 24, after its monthly board meeting. Patterson succeeds Sue Kristjansson, who left in December 2020.
ORUD has provided natural gas in Anderson and Roane Counties for nearly 70 years.
[Read more…]Natural gas rates will increase for Oak Ridge Utility District customers because of weather-related price increases and higher transportation costs. Rates are expected to decrease when weather-related spikes decline.
The rates will increase because there has been a rise in the price of natural gas related to the recent extreme weather, ORUD Director of Finance/Controller Robert DePriest said Friday.
Also, in January, there was an increase in the transportation costs that ORUD pays for the delivery of natural gas to its distribution system, DePriest said in a statement.
[Read more…]
Image courtesy ORUD
The Oak Ridge Utility District is asking natural gas customers to reduce their gas use after a pipeline ruptured in Smith County, Tennessee, on Saturday.
The rupture in the natural gas transmission line cut off all supply from the pipeline to many utilities in East Tennessee, ORUD said.
“We have been advised by Enbridge, the company that owns and operates the pipeline, that repairs to the impacted section could last into early- or mid-January,” ORUD said.
“We are working each and every day to ensure we have enough gas to serve our customers through various other sources and ask that our customers consider reducing gas usage as much as possible as we work through this incident,” ORUD said. [Read more…]
Emily Rios and Nikki Adkisson of the Marketing Department for Oak Ridge Utility District are pictured above with Barry Stephenson at the MCLinc Valentine’s Day Pancake Breakfast. (Submitted photo)
In February, Oak Ridge Utility District hosts its annual “Have a Heart, Heat a Home†fundraiser to raise money for ADFAC’s Project SAFE, a program that helps families struggling to pay heating bills and facing the loss of energy service.
This year’s low temperatures in January meant that heating bills would be on the rise and donations would be greatly needed, a press release said.
“In order to help our neighbors pay these bills, ADFAC counts on the generosity of the community to support the program,” the press release said. [Read more…]
Former University of Tennessee football coach Phillip Fulmer will be the keynote speaker at an Industry Appreciation Breakfast in Oak Ridge in September.
The invitation-only breakfast is sponsored by the Oak Ridge Utility District and the Oak Ridge Chamber of Commerce. It will be at ORUD on Tuesday morning, September 12.
More information will be added as it becomes available.
The lease on Anderson County General Sessions Court, Division II, on Bus Terminal Road in Oak Ridge expires Dec. 31, but officials will ask for a one-year lease extension while courthouse options are considered. (Photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)
CLINTON—Several alternative locations have been proposed, including a city-owned building at A.K. Bissell Park and a county-owned building on Emory Valley Road, but for now, the Anderson County General Sessions Court in Oak Ridge could remain at a privately owned building on Bus Terminal Road.
Once housed at the Oak Ridge Municipal Building, the General Sessions, Division II, courthouse has been on Bus Terminal Road since January 2009.
But the lease expires December 31.
On Monday, November 16, the Anderson County Commission voted 15-0 on a voice vote to ask for a one-year lease extension with no penalty and to work with Oak Ridge to share courthouse costs.
“That year buys us time to look at all the options,†said County Commissioner Myron Iwanski, who represents District 8, which includes Emory Valley, Woodland, and Hendrix Creek. [Read more…]
First elected in August, Judge Roger Miller, left, is pictured in Anderson County General Sessions Court, Division II, in Oak Ridge before a bond hearing this summer. (2015 file photo by John Huotari/Oak Ridge Today)Â
CLINTON—Anderson County officials could ask for a one-year extension of the lease on the General Sessions Court, Division II, in Oak Ridge. The current lease expires at the end of the year, on December 31.
The county has an option to renew the lease for five years from January 1, 2016, through the end of 2021, but it’s not clear if officials want to do that. There are questions about whether they want to keep a courthouse in Oak Ridge, particularly if the City of Oak Ridge is not providing financial support. But if Division II court does stay in Oak Ridge, there is a question about whether it should remain at the current location at the former Oak Ridge Utility District building on Bus Terminal Road.
Officials have limited time, about 80 days, to weigh the alternatives before the lease expires, and there are holidays in the meantime, said Anderson County Commissioner Mark Alderson, who made a motion to seek a one-year lease extension during an Operations Committee meeting on Monday. The committee unanimously approved that proposal on a voice vote. [Read more…]
A shopping center was evacuated on Tuesday afternoon after a gas leak was reported at the former Kroger grocery store on South Illinois Avenue.
A shopping center was evacuated Tuesday afternoon after a gas leak was reported at the former Kroger grocery store on South Illinois Avenue.
Emergency workers remained on the scene for several hours and were still there as of about 7 p.m. Tuesday.
The gas leak was reported at about 3:45 p.m. Tuesday, and Oak Ridge emergency workers quickly evacuated surrounding stores, including China Wok, Nixon’s Deli, Mr. K’s Used Books and CDs, and Big Kmart. They also closed off the surrounding parking lot.
An employee at Mr. K’s smelled gas inside the store Tuesday afternoon, evening manager Kelly Smith said. The staff initially thought it might be coming from NIxon’s, the deli next door. But then they learned that Nixon’s doesn’t use natural gas. A walk around the shopping center’s parking lot determined that the gas was probably coming from the former Kroger store, Smith said.
The odor was getting stronger and stronger, he said. [Read more…]
The male driver of this Honda Odyssey minivan was taken to the hospital after he crashed into a wooded area alongside Oak Ridge Turnpike and sparked a gas line fire. The area of the gas line fire is in the left foreground.
Note: This story was last updated at 9:05 p.m.
A male driver was taken to the hospital after a westbound minivan went down a small embankment on the north side of Oak Ridge Turnpike, crashed into a wooded area, and sparked a gas line fire on the east end of town.
Driver Thomas Debusk, 43, of Knoxville, was taken by ambulance to the University of Tennessee Medical Center in Knoxville, the Oak Ridge Police Department said.
The cause of the crash, reported at about 1:43 p.m., was not immediately known. The gold 2003 Honda Odyssey van driven by Debusk struck an aboveground natural gas pipeline in a small basin below Oak Ridge Turnpike and next to the parking lot at Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses, which is across from Tractor Supply. [Read more…]
Oak Ridge firefighters investigate a report of smoke at Oak Ridge Utility District on Thursday morning. They found a hot ceiling tile and determined a light ballast had apparently failed, causing a fixture to overheat and igniting insulation paper. (Submitted photos)
The Oak Ridge Fire Department called it a “near miss.”
Firefighters responded at about 6:40 a.m. Thursday to a report of smoke at the Oak Ridge Utility District office building on South Jefferson Circle. The source of the smoke was initially believed to be a motor on a heat and air unit that had failed, but fire crews using a thermal imaging camera located a hot ceiling tile in an office, an ORFD press release said.
“It appears that a light ballast had failed, causing the fixture to overheat, which ignited the paper backing on the insulation lying directly on top of the recessed light,” the release said. “The paper burned along the insulation for approximately five feet until the insulation came into contact with a sprinkler pipe, where it self-extinguished. There was no damage, smoke or water, to the building, and the burned insulation was removed by the firefighters.” [Read more…]
