Macon Municipal Utilities (MMU) purchases gas on both a daily and a futures basis. Acquisitions are made based on numerous factors: detailed historical data, local and national weather forecasts, hourly and daily market trends, and other global factors that affect pricing. Our commodity purchases are made through Enbridge Marketing (U.S.), Inc. of Houston, Texas.

In addition to the commodity, we must also acquire transportation services. To ensure gas transportation pipeline capacities are not exceeded, MMU is required to make daily quantity nominations to system operators 1-3 days in advance within a five (5) percent window of accuracy. MMU moves gas on Enbridge’s gas pipeline segment and on Panhandle Energy Pipeline systems. MMU purchases approximately 500,000 decatherms of gas annually to supply our customers. In addition, we move another 2,100,000 decatherms annually through our system to serve the requirements of Northeast Missouri Grain, LLC and our Macon Energy Center co-gen facility.

As with electricity, gas now goes where the prices are highest. Long-term contracts are no longer available due to large market price swings. Two of the largest contributing factors to the new market are global issues and energy trading. Over 90 percent of the gas bought and traded is only on paper and no commodity delivery is ever made. World demands for gas also drive prices to unheard-of levels of a few years ago. Now for the first time, gas prices and electric prices follow each other, both higher than ever before.

The work and effort to enable the customer to have hot water, heat, and lights is unlike nothing before. MMU strives to make our work as transparent as possible to our customers and provide gas at the most economical cost.

Macon Municipal Utilities taps Panhandle Energy Services’ Moberly natural gas lateral on the southern edge of Moberly. The Moberly lateral serves several Panhandle Energy customers from approximately seven miles north of Columbia along U.S. Highway 63 to and including Moberly at its termination. From that point, Macon reduces the pressure, adds odorant, and moves gas through 26 miles of parallel 6-inch and 8-inch pipe that we own and maintain. In Macon, we again reduce the operating pressure to serve our 2,200 customers throughout approximately 45 miles of distribution pipe.

Macon’s natural gas system is regulated by the Missouri Public Service Commission and has a historical daily peak consumption of 4,168 decatherms or 41,680 hundred cubic feet.

WATER SERVICE

Macon's Water Treatment Plant at 1201 Noll Drive was built in 1966 and has had numerous changes through the years to meet the demand of our growing  community. We switched our water source from Macon Lake to water pumped from Long Branch Lake into Macon lake in the 1980s. Then we went to pumping directly into the plant from Long Branch Lake in the mid 1990s; making Long branch our sole source for water.We have a conventional surface water treatment system with flocculation followed by settling then filtration through mixed media filters consisting of 8 inches of support gravel, 12 inches of silica sand, and 24 inches of Granular Activated Carbon (GAC). The GAC caps were installed to help meet the organic removal requirements of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Our plant is capable of producing 4.32 million gallons a day, and our average for June 2005 was between 2.6 and 3.2 million gallons per day. We serve a population of over 10,000 drinking water users. This includes almost 6,000 in Macon, the Cities of Bevier and Atlanta, and Macon County Public Water Supply District #1.

WASTE WATER SERVICE

Macon Municipal Utilities waste water treatment facility was built in 1960 with major additions to the plant in 1985. Major additions in 1988 included the addition of one more primary settling basin, a 660,000 gallon storm-water overflow basin was added, and the capacity of the solids processing facility was doubled.

The current plant includes two primary settling basins, two rock media trickling filters, one secondary plastic media trickling filter tower, and two final clarifiers.