BETHEL — With no comment other than to thank the eight members of the Ad Hoc Natural Gas Committee for their efforts, the Bethel Board of Selectmen accepted the group’s final report Dec. 19.

The committee was formed in August to explore the feasibility of establishing a municipal entity to provide natural gas to Bethel-area businesses.

Its conclusion: “The Ad Hoc Natural Gas Committee has determined that having the Town of Bethel form a municipal entity for distribution of natural gas in Bethel is not feasible.”

The committee based its conclusion on several factors, most involving the financial exposure the town would face should the project fail economically.

“1. We can be confident that the municipal gas distribution utility would be solvent if and only if most of the potential demand can be realized as actual demand. Specifically, solvency would require that the “anchor customers” (Sunday River, Gould Academy, Bethel Inn) convert to natural gas at the outset and stay converted throughout the period of the bond. We see no way for a municipal utility to ensure this. While long-term energy contracts between large users and utilities are not unusual, energy contracts with a term of 20-30 years are indeed unusual.

“2. We cannot discount the possibility that the propane industry might see fit to undercut our gas price, even operating at a loss, for as long as it would take to render our municipal utility insolvent. Some of us are old enough to remember the gasoline wars of decades past.

“3. We are advised that the State of Maine might seek to discourage the formation of such a risky municipal utility, out of concern that it might have to bail out the town should it fail. We can only imagine what forms this discouragement might take.

“4. We doubt that the town would vote to back the necessary municipal bond with the full faith and credit of the town, given that the risk would be assumed by the entire town and that the major benefits of having natural gas would accrue only to part of the citizenry.”

The committee concluded the report by noting that none of the factors its cites would have a similar effect on a private gas utility, especially one set up and financed by the three “anchor customers” mentioned above, “for they would be committed to converting to natural gas from the outset and to sticking with it. Those anchor customers may or may not choose to consider this idea, but we feel that our committee’s mandate does not include promoting this idea.”

Bethel Town Manager Jim Doar said the idea of a municipal natural-gas utility is effectively dead.