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The Memphis Light Gas and Water Division (MLGW) is a
Official website
The Memphis Light Gas and Water Division (MLGW) is a municipal
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...
public utility
A public utility company (usually just utility) is an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service (often also providing a service using that infrastructure). Public utilities are subject to forms of public control and r ...
serving the city of Memphis
Memphis most commonly refers to:
* Memphis, Egypt, a former capital of ancient Egypt
* Memphis, Tennessee, a major American city
Memphis may also refer to:
Places United States
* Memphis, Alabama
* Memphis, Florida
* Memphis, Indiana
* Memp ...
and Shelby County, Tennessee
Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...
, United States.
Description
MLGW is the largest three-service municipal utility in the U.S. with more than 420,000 customers and is owned by the City of Memphis. Since 1939, MLGW has provided electricity, natural gas, and water service for residents of Memphis and Shelby County. MLGW is supplied with electricity by theTennessee Valley Authority
The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolin ...
(TVA), a federal agency that sells electricity on a nonprofit basis to its distributors. MLGW is TVA's largest customer, representing 11 percent of TVA's total load. There are over 428,000 electric customers.
Natural gas is the most common means of residential heating in the MLGW service area. MLGW provides natural gas to more than 313,000 customers in Shelby County.
While some utilities obtain drinking water from surface lakes or rivers, MLGW supplies water from the Memphis aquifer beneath Shelby County. It contains more than 100 trillion gallons of water that are more than 2,000 years old. MLGW operates one of the largest artesian well systems in the world consisting of 10 water pumping stations and more than 175 wells, delivering water to more than 253,000 customers.
History
The city purchased a private water system in 1902 and operated it as the Memphis Artesian Water Department. The city later purchased the local portion of the electrical system of the Memphis Power and Light Company in 1939 for $15 million and formed the MLGW Division. From 1937 to 1970 the department was headquartered at the historicScimitar Building
Scimitar Building, also known as the Memphis Light, Gas, and Water Building, Winchester Building and most recently Hotel Napoleon, is a five-story stone-veneer structure in Memphis, Tennessee. Its architecture features a combination of Beaux-Arts ...
at Madison Avenue and Third Street.
See also
* '' United Gas Pipe Line Co. v. Memphis Light, Gas, and Water Division'', a 1958 Supreme Court decisionExternal links
Official website
References
{{authority control Public utilities of the United States Municipal electric utilities of the United States Water companies of the United States Companies based in Memphis, Tennessee American companies established in 1939 1939 establishments in Tennessee