Columbia Gas, NiSource Grilled at Senate Hearing

The six House and Senate members from Massachusetts and New Hampshire held a hearing at a packed middle school gymnasium in Lawrence, taking aim at the corporate culture at Columbia Gas of Massachusetts and its parent company, Indiana-based NiSource. They painted a picture of a corporation that cut corners and lacked the internal procedures to prevent, let alone respond to, the Sept. 13 disaster that killed one person, injured dozens more, damaged more than 100 homes and left thousands without heat or hot water in the Merrimack Valley communities of Lawrence, North Andover and Andover.