Editor’s note: This column discloses that the author is the affected residential customer in the case discussed. Our reporting presents documentary evidence, including Washington Gas’s own billing records, the company’s portal, recorded calls, a comprehensive email audit, the Maryland Public Service Commission’s published orders, the Maryland Office of People’s Counsel’s formal filings, and customer complaints documented across multiple public platforms. A formal press inquiry was sent to Washington Gas’s communications office on Saturday, May 16, 2026, with a response deadline of 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, May 17, 2026. As of 7:00 a.m. on Monday, May 18, 2026, Washington Gas had not responded.
On Saturday morning, May 16, 2026, a Washington Gas customer service operator named Deborah told me, on a recorded line, that customer service is closed on weekends.
Deborah told me the emergency line is “only doing gas leaks.” She said her supervisor “cannot do anything about it and that there’s “no one that you can speak to.” Even after escalation, Deborah said, the response time is still 28 to 48 hours. No chance to connect with Washington Gas’s customer service team on the weekends.
I am temporarily disabled (for at least eight weeks). I underwent major foot surgery at Frederick Health on Wednesday, April 22, 2026, following a Sunday, April 20, hospitalization. I walk using crutches. On the same day as my surgery, Washington Gas dated a Gas Bill – Discontinuance Notice on my account.
Was there a billing discrepancy? No idea. The shutoff notice arrived in my Gaithersburg mailbox around May 1 while I was in early post-surgical recovery. Washington Gas claims it turned off my gas meter on May 6. We lost hot water about a week later.
Washington Gas did not call me.
The company never sent me a notification in its own customer portal.
And six days after the shutoff, on May 12, Washington Gas’s automated system sent me a payment reminder, as if a company technician had not already turned off the meter on that same account.
I am writing this column not as an exception; I am writing it as the latest documented example of a pattern Maryland regulators identified four years ago and have not adequately enforced since.
Washington Gas’s 2022 $1 Million+ Fine
On March 17, 2022, the Maryland Public Service Commission ordered Washington Gas to pay a civil penalty of $1,147,600.
The Commission’s ruling, the culmination of a complaint filed by the Office of People’s Counsel in September 2021, found that Washington Gas had “consistently failed to meet industry standards for responding to customers who call its service center for issues such as connecting or terminating service, bill inquiries, and other matters.”
The Commission found that Washington Gas’s failures, dating back to its 2018 acquisition by Canadian energy infrastructure company AltaGas Ltd., caused customers “significant harm.”
The numbers behind that finding are stark.
Before the AltaGas merger, Washington Gas answered 77% of customer calls within 30 seconds. After the merger, that figure dropped to 43%. The percentage of calls abandoned by frustrated customers rose from 11% to 28 %. The longest customer hold time grew from 41 minutes to 67 minutes, compared with an industry average of 8 minutes.
The fine itself was not the most important part of the 2022 Order; the disconnection moratorium was.
The Commission ordered Washington Gas to suspend collections, disconnections, and late fees until the company achieved customer service standards for three consecutive months. Until the company met those metrics, it was not permitted to terminate service for non-payment.
Washington Gas told WUSA9 in March 2022 that it had already fixed the problem. The full order, Public Service Commission Order No. 90018 in Case No. 9449, remains available on the Commission’s website and details the eight specific customer service metrics the Commission required Washington Gas to satisfy for three consecutive months before the company could resume disconnecting customers.
“We are pleased to report that we have improved our customer service issues in 2022. On average, our customers are now able to reach a representative for emergency and non-emergency calls in less than 30 seconds,” the company said.
The Commission has not publicly confirmed when, or whether, Washington Gas was certified as having satisfied the nine customer service metrics for three consecutive months.
I have formally requested that the Commission clarify this question – because this answer matters. If Washington Gas is currently disconnecting customers without certified compliance with the 2022 Order, every disconnection is potentially a violation of the Commission’s own ruling.
Washington Gas’s Bad Business Practices Continue
Maryland customers tell a different story from the one Washington Gas told WUSA9.
In August 2025, a Washington Gas customer wrote on ConsumerAffairs: “Washington Gas is the worst. They cut my gas off with no notice, no announcement that they were at my house, which is illegal.” The same month, another customer described attempting to start service at a vacant condominium on the Friday of Labor Day weekend. The technician never called.
The customer requested a supervisor. The supervisors were, in the customer’s words, “all in a meeting for 45 minutes.”
Nobody called back.
The company disconnected a 25-year customer without warning after a portal lockout. When the customer paid in full, Washington Gas told her the policy was to reconnect “the next day.” Because the disconnection occurred on a Friday, the “next day” was Monday. The customer’s family went four days without heat or hot water.
In December 2025, Washington Gas responded to a Better Business Bureau complaint with a statement that, on the record, confirmed the weekend service gap as company policy.
“Service appointments are scheduled Monday through Friday based on availability each day,” the company wrote. “Washington Gas does not do same-day appointments.”
That is not an operator’s misstatement; it’s Washington Gas, in writing, in a formal response to a regulatory complaint platform, in 2025, admitting that the company’s residential service operation does not function on weekends.
The Maryland Office of People’s Counsel, in a May 14, 2025, brief in a separate proceeding, accused Washington Gas of demonstrating “disregard, if not contempt, for the interests of its customers and its obligations as a public utility,” and of abusing customer trust and using its monopoly status “to advance its own self-interest.”
The People’s Counsel is Maryland’s official ratepayer advocate. The brief is a formal regulatory document, and the language is not hyperbole; it’s the considered position of the state agency charged with representing customers like me before the Public Service Commission.
Washington Gas’s Deceptive Marketing
The 2022 customer service fine represents one of two major accountability actions currently active against Washington Gas in Maryland. The second is the deceptive marketing case.
On November 24, 2021, the Office of People’s Counsel filed a separate complaint alleging that Washington Gas had distributed bill inserts falsely claiming that natural gas was “clean energy,” cost one-third as much as electricity, and would help save acres of trees. The Public Service Commission initially dismissed the complaint.
The Appellate Court of Maryland overturned that dismissal, and the Maryland Supreme Court declined to review the appellate ruling, forcing the Commission to reconsider.
On March 20, 2025, Utility Law Judge Ryan McLean ruled that Washington Gas’s marketing statements misled customers, lacked context and verification, and violated state utility law. Judge McLean called Washington Gas’s inability to verify the accuracy of the claims before distributing them to customers “particularly alarming.” Governor Moore subsequently appointed McLean to the Public Service Commission itself in July 2025.
The Office of People’s Counsel now seeks a civil penalty of approximately $5.9 million against Washington Gas for the methane marketing violations, plus corrective statements on every customer bill. The case remains pending before the Commission. Washington Gas’s posture on accountability questions has stayed consistent.
Andre Francis, Washington Gas’s strategic communications director, told Inside Climate News in 2022 that the Public Service Commission had “exercised authority granted by the General Assembly to dismiss the Office of People’s Counsel deceptive marketing complaint as legally insufficient.”
Washington Gas, Francis added, “does not comment on active litigation.”
Washington Gas Executive Michelle Musgrove Hired To Fix Broken Customer Service System
The Washington Gas operator who told me, on a recorded line, that customer service is closed on weekends was doing exactly what her employer had trained her to do.
The executive responsible for that training is Michelle Musgrove, Washington Gas’s Vice President of Customer Experience.
Musgrove was hired in September 2021, according to NBC4’s reporting, “to fix a broken customer service department.” Within weeks of her arrival, she promised the public a “road map to get to a much better place,” including a call-back feature, additional customer service representatives during peak hours, an improved website, and a new app.
Five months later, the Maryland Public Service Commission imposed a $1.14 million civil penalty on Washington Gas for what its order called the company’s “extensive failure to provide adequate customer service.”
Musgrove remains in the role today. Her Washington Gas job description, per the company’s published materials, is to oversee “the customer contact center, billing, and account management.” The customer contact center is the function whose operator told me on Saturday morning that no one was available to help.
During the four and a half years Musgrove has led customer experience at Washington Gas, the same patterns that the 2022 fine was supposed to fix have continued.
Customer complaint platforms have documented unannounced disconnections, multi-day waits for reconnection, supervisors unavailable for escalation, and weekend service abandonment, all through 2025 and into 2026. The Office of People’s Counsel, in its May 14, 2025, regulatory brief, accused the company Musgrove serves of demonstrating “disregard, if not contempt, for the interests of its customers.”
The Daily Record named Musgrove a 2025 Influential Marylander. She serves on the boards of the Washington, DC Economic Partnership, NAIOP DC/MD, and The Burke School. The record documents both her recognition and the performance of the operation she oversees.
I emailed Vice President Musgrove a direct, named press inquiry on Saturday, May 16, 2026, with seven specific questions about the customer service operation she leads and the documented pattern of failures during her tenure.
As of 7:00 a.m. on Monday, May 18, 2026, Vice President Musgrove had not responded.
The Washington Gas Executives Responsible
The President of Washington Gas is Donald “Blue” Jenkins. He has held the role since December 2019, when AltaGas announced he would succeed Adrian Chapman on Chapman’s retirement. Jenkins’s full corporate title is Executive Vice President and President, Utilities and President, Washington Gas, at AltaGas Ltd.
Jenkins was the President of Washington Gas in 2020, when WUSA9 first reported the company was failing to meet customer expectations. He was the President in 2021, when the Office of People’s Counsel filed the formal complaint that led to the 2022 fine, and again in December 2021, when the Public Service Commission found “extensive failure to provide adequate customer service.”
Mr. Jenkins was the President on March 17, 2022, when the Commission imposed the $1,147,600 penalty and the disconnection moratorium.
He was the President during the 2023 Maryland rate case that increased customer bills. He was the President in March 2025. Utility Law Judge Ryan McLean ruled that the company engaged in deceptive marketing to customers.
He was President in May 2025, when the Office of the People’s Counsel, in a regulatory filing, accused the company of showing contempt for its customers. And Jenkins was President on April 22, 2026, when Washington Gas dated my discontinuance notice on the same day I had foot surgery. He is the President today.
The Chairman of the Washington Gas Light Company Board is Vern D. Yu. Yu simultaneously serves as President and Chief Executive Officer of AltaGas Ltd. This Calgary-based parent company acquired WGL Holdings in 2018. He has held the position of AltaGas CEO since July 1, 2023.
Public filings indicate Yu’s total annual compensation is approximately CA$9.9 million, comprising 12% salary and 88% in bonuses, including company stock and options. For context, the median Maryland household income is approximately $108,000. Vern Yu earns, in Canadian dollars, approximately 67 times what the median Maryland household earns each year.
Washington Gas serves 513,000 customers across Montgomery, Prince George’s, Calvert, Charles, and St. Mary’s counties. Every one of those households is within a regulated monopoly. None of them can choose a different natural gas distributor. They cannot vote with their wallets. They can only call customer service.
And customer service does not exist on weekends.
Maryland’s Regulatory Response So Far
Governor Wes Moore appointed Kumar Barve to chair the Maryland Public Service Commission on January 12, 2026.
Mr. Barve represented Montgomery County’s House District 17 for thirty-two years before joining the Commission. District 17 includes parts of Gaithersburg, where I live. Per Maryland Matters, the appointment came as Moore was “seeking a fresh direction” for the board.
In March 2026, Barve told Fox45: “Under my leadership, we’re going to be very, very aggressive in pursuing the best interest of the ratepayers in the State of Maryland.”
The Maryland General Assembly passed the Utility RELIEF Act on April 13, 2026.
Governor Moore framed the legislation as “holding utility companies accountable,” aiming to save Marylanders at least $150 annually on their energy bills. While the legislation tackled costs, it seemingly ignored service availability standards and non-emergency technician dispatch requirements.
The same legislation failed to address weekend customer service obligations. It did not address the documented gap between the protections COMAR 20.31.03.03 provides Maryland customers during winter, when utilities must attempt two personal contacts before disconnection, and the absence of equivalent protections during the rest of the year.
The weekend gap remains.
The disability protections in COMAR 20.31.01.03 and COMAR 20.31.01.04 remain dependent on the customer notifying the utility “in advance” of a notice that may arrive while the customer is in surgery.
The notice framework outside winter remains a single mailed paper bill, sent through the U.S. Postal Service, on the date the company chooses, with no requirement to use the phone number, email address, or in-app notification channels the company maintains on file.
Questions Washington Gas Must Answer
To Washington Gas: Why did your company use only one of the four contact channels you maintain for residential customers, the slowest one, between April 22 and May 6?
Why did your automated system send me a payment reminder six days after your technician turned off my meter? Is the recorded statement of your operator that customer service is closed on weekends an accurate description of company policy?
Has Washington Gas been certified by the Public Service Commission as having met the nine customer service metrics required by Order No. 90018 for three consecutive months? If so, when? If not, on what basis is the company currently disconnecting Maryland customers?
To Vice President Michelle Musgrove: Four and a half years ago, the public record shows we hired you to fix a broken Washington Gas system. Today, that same operation still cannot answer a customer’s call on a Saturday morning.
What specific operational improvements can you point to as evidence that you have done the job we hired you to do?
To President Donald “Blue” Jenkins: You have led this company through every documented customer service failure for six and a half years. The Public Service Commission fined Washington Gas $1.14 million for failures on your watch. The Office of People’s Counsel has accused the company you lead of demonstrating contempt for its customers in a formal regulatory filing.
What will it take, and how many more years, for the company to operate a customer service function that functions seven days a week?
To Vern D. Yu, AltaGas CEO and Washington Gas Board Chairman: The 513,000 Maryland households inside the regulated monopoly you oversee cannot reach customer service on weekends. They cannot choose a competitor. They cannot escape the consequences of decisions made in Calgary by an executive earning CA$9.9 million in annual compensation.
What is your personal position on the operational reality that those customers experience?
The receipts are in the open. The names of the people accountable for the operational reality that 513,000 Maryland households live with are public. The four-year-old regulatory order requiring Washington Gas to fix what it broke is now in the public domain.
A Miner Detail will continue reporting until each question in this column has an answer.
