Nearly every city, county and state across our nation has some sort of tax revenue shortfall, and many city managers are being forced to cut spending.

City managers may be overlooking a pot of gold for their budgets!

During a recent investigation and analysis by RecoverIR, we uncovered nearly 20% natural gas theft in 84,000 acres in homes in Detroit and nearly 80% of those homes stealing natural gas were stealing electricity.  Discovered theft methods ranged from garden hoses with clamps going around meters, to underground bypasses, to meters stolen from abandoned homes and installed on other homes.  If you can image a way to steal natural gas, it was being done!  And it continues in cities across our nation!

So what does this have to do with city budgets?

Do you think a person who is stealing natural gas is going to call the gas company and tell them they think they smell leaking natural gas?  We think not!

The result is fire hazards ranging from minor burns to explosive fires which completely destroy homes, for example Philly.com http://www.philly.com posted a story on Thu, Jan. 14, 2010, Woman hurt in N. Phila. house explosion http://www.philly.com/philly/news/breaking/20100114_Woman_hurt_in_N__Phila__house_explosion.html

And the story described the possibility of both an illegal gas hookup and illegal electric hookup which resulted in the “woman, not identified, (being) taken to Temple University Hospital with first degree burns to the hands following the 6:30 a.m. blast at 210 W. Allegheny Ave.

On 28 January 2010, a Cleveland Ohio home experienced a natural gas explosion, completely destroying the house and damaging 57 other homes.  A representative of the gas company “could not explain why in a city where scrap thieves steal pipes and gas meters. the company’s policy is to shut off the gas inside the home rather than at the curb.”  If the gas is shutoff inside a house, how hard would it be for a person to illegally turn the gas back on in the house to steal natural gas or have a vagrant leave gas on in a city where “Hundreds of other vacant homes are located throughout the city like “ticking time bombs,”?  (see www.clevelad.com article  ”Gas not shut off outside house that exploded Monday on Cleveland’s West Side”)   How much did this blast and the damage to the other 57 homes cost the city budget?

Is it possible that homes heated by fuel oil might be stealing natural gas and explode?

On January 25, 2009 the Boston Globe reported a natural gas explosion in a home heated by fuel oil, and two adjacent homes were damaged by the blast leaving the sides of the two homes charred.  The Boston Globe reported, ” ‘It appears that natural gas was the cause, but how it entered the house and how it may have ignited is under investigation,’ said David Graves, a spokesman for National Grid.”  Those in the neighborhood said the explosion was so violent that “”The house just disappeared from the street,” (For further details see Explosion destroys Gloucester home).  Home much did the response to this likely natural gas theft, a likely underground illegal natural gas bypass cost the city?

So the question I have to the followers and readers of this blog is, “How much, on average, does it cost a city to respond to burns, fires, and explosions associated with illegal energy hookups?”

We estimate the marginal additional cost to the aggregated fire and emergency response teams for a large metropolitan city could be as high as $1 million to $10 million per year, and the marginal additional cost to a city or county of about 200,000 residences could be as much as 5% of the cost of operating the fire and emergency organizations.

If you have better factual numbers about the real marginal costs per response to roll out emergency responses per calamity in a city, please comment on this blog.  We love to get some quantifiable costs.

We are extremely interested in quantifying and refining our estimates and helping city and county managers reduce their budgets by reducing fire risks through reduction in illegal gas and electricity thefts.

What caused these gas explosions and how much did each response cost the respective city?  We don’t know but here are some reported examples of home explosions which may or may not be related to leaking gas:

Please let us know what your think.  Please let us know if you have good fact based numbers.