Mat-Su Assembly withholds two ENSTAR relocation payments after costs roughly doubled

Gas line relocation costs

Road service area budgets in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough will cover hundreds of thousands of dollars in higher gas line relocation costs after ENSTAR Natural Gas raised its estimates on eight road projects, several by 100 percent or more.

The Matanuska-Susitna Borough Assembly approved six of those amendments on Aug. 18, ranging from about $31,500 to $220,624, all revised estimates for projects at earlier stages. It withheld two pending invoices for completed work, on Crimson View and Heavenly Meadows and on Helen Lane, postponing them to Sept. 1 and inviting ENSTAR leadership to explain the increases.

"NSTAR basically doubled the cost of all these projects, to the tune of almost $700,000," Mayor Edna DeVries said. The Crimson View project went from $160,000 to $389,000, she said, money that would otherwise repair France Road, which serves the Pathway School.

DeVries said the borough was in a difficult position because no competing utility can do the work. Borough code generally requires the borough to pay relocation costs when a permitted utility must move for a public purpose, with limited exceptions.

Staff first rejected the bills. ENSTAR acknowledged the estimating errors, but administrators said the work was done, the invoice amounts are not disputed and accurate estimates likely would have produced the same costs.