MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) - A natural gas company in Vermont hopes to extend a proposed natural gas pipeline to carry fuel under Lake Champlain to a paper plant in New York.
Vermont Gas says it has reached an agreement with International Paper in Ticonderoga, N.Y., to share engineering and environmental studies of the project.
The company already plans to build a pipeline south from Chittenden County to Vergennes, Middlebury and Rutland.
Company spokesman Steve Wark tells Vermont Public Radio extending the line under the lake to the paper plant would provide an anchor customer and could be built at no additional cost to residential ratepayers.
International Paper now burns fuel oil. Company spokeswoman Donna Wadsworth said switching to natural gas would reduce fuel costs and greenhouse gas emissions
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