Protect the Flowers with Natural Gas

As I was driving to work the other day I was listening to Keyspan, the utility in Long Island, pitching a deal on WCBS-radio. Keyspan will finance a new gas furnace if customers who are now on heating oil will switch to natural gas. “Clean-burning natural gas… No sulphur dioxide emissions… No noxious odors from incomplete combustion… No nasty oil leaks…”

“Oil leaks?” I ask myself. I never thought about those before. Once in a while my wife and I remember that nasty oil tank buried under the garden in front of our house. But that’s only because we’re going to have to deal with it some day if ever think about moving. Leaks in the basement outside the furnace are another story entirely. Now that would be nasty! Maybe it’s time to hook up to that natural gas line after all.

Talk about serendipity. Or should I say, “serendi-pity.” Later in the day I’m getting some coffee and I overhear Darlene telling a story to one of our colleagues. It went something like this:

I always wondered how the heating oil delivery guys know how much oil to put in
the tank. Do they have a dip stick? Somebody told me they listen for
a whistling sound.

Anyway, the other day I noticed we were
low on oil so I called asked for a half tank. I figured it would be enough
to carry us through the remainder of the winter.

You can
imagine my surprise when I came home and I found that the truck driver had
overfilled the tank. Over 10 gallons of oil leaked into the basement after
destroying the flower beds and staining the shingles on the side of our house.
Some computers were damaged in the workshop. To top it off, the driver
must have realized his mistake because he used our garden hose to try to rinse
the oil off of the house! There was oil in the storm drain and all over
the soil of the flower beds lining our driveway.

We called
our insurance company and they arrived with somebody from the EPA to assess the
damage. We’re now looking at a hefty cleanup once soil samples come
back. Contaminated soil runs the length of our driveway and into our
yard. We probably lost our plantings and may have to redo the
driveway.

And here I’m working at a natural gas company. None
of this would have happened if we had natural gas!

I have to admit that I felt a little embarrassed admitting to my colleagues that we have heating oil at home. Despite the fact that we don’t yet serve customers in Connecticut, I haven’t wanted to push too hard on the home front. My wife is the CEO of our family affairs and it would be hypocritical of me to second guess her on matters like this. But if cheaper prices are not a good enough reason (after all, natural gas has been cheaper that heating oil in recent years), now I have another one: Protect our flower beds! This might be an easier sale than I thought!