The pending arrival of Scripps Research Institute in Palm Beach County has spawned dreams of a high-tech economic boom in South Florida. But it has also triggered something more mundane: a territorial dispute between TECO Energy's Peoples Gas subsidiary and Florida Public Utilities Co. of West Palm Beach.
FPU, the state's smallest investor-owned utility, has asked the Florida Public Service Commission to resolve the dispute. According to an FPU filing with the PSC, company officials met March 22 with a Palm Beach County official to coordinate the start of natural gas service to the Scripps project. To their dismay, they learned that the official had already met with representatives from Peoples Gas a month before.
FPU claims that the area Scripps will occupy lies in territory to which it has the right to provide natural gas services. FPU also argues that "it is in the public interest" for it to serve Scripps because its commercial and residential rates are lower and its existing gas-distribution network is closer, meaning construction of gas line extensions would be less disruptive to the environment.
Peoples Gas spokesman Lance Horton countered that the Scripps Institute will be located within Peoples' service territory. He acknowledged that FPU's rates might be lower at the moment and that its network might be closer "as the crow flies." But with construction of the Scripps facility not expected to be completed until the end of 2006, "it's a pretty preliminary situation," Horton said. "There's a lot that can change between now and then."
