Roughrider pulls plug on plumbing
By April Baumgarten
Roughrider Electric Cooperative will close its lone plumbing office at the end of the year, officials said Monday. The Hazen branch will no longer offer the service as of Dec. 31, Innovative Energy Alliance co-manager Chris Baumgartner. The supplier wants to focus on offering electrical services, he added. “We have been looking at it for quite some time,” he said. “It was no longer the best use of our resources.” Roughrider Electric is a member of IEA with the Slope, Mor-Gran-Sou and KEM electric cooperatives. The cooperative has more than 12,000 accounts with members in five counties, including Oliver and Mercer. The company’s customer base has grown exponentially in the past years, Baumgartner said. Even Hazen has seen growth. Plumbing was a “wonderful service” that Roughrider was happy to offer, Baumgartner said. The department wasn’t viable to keep open, and the company wanted to focus on providing services to all its members, he added.
