County gas-line strikes down since summer

November 07, 2023 Last Updated: November 06, 2023 10:49 PM Local News

At least 12 calls for gas-line strikes have been dispatched since August in the county, down from more than 20 reports during June through July.

“We absolutely have seen additional lines struck throughout the community,” said Chief Scott Garing of Cranberry Township Volunteer Fire Company. “We’ve responded to them just like we have in the past and called the appropriate resource to mitigate the hazard.”

Although lines have been struck in Adams and Jefferson townships and Saxonburg, at least 75% of the calls have come from Cranberry Township — coinciding with ongoing cable infrastructure upgrades.

Garing previously said the department had seen upward of 45 calls for natural gas emergencies since the start of the year.

“The increase is because of the horizontal drilling they’re doing with the (machines) they’re using,” Garing said. “Most of the time they’re hitting lines that are marked incorrectly, or there’s some other type of variable associated with it.”

All three of the township’s service providers — Armstrong, Comcast and Consolidated Communications — initiated efforts this year to upgrade or expand cable infrastructure in the region, with work expected to continue into 2024.

Joe Taylor, vice president of the Armstrong Group of Companies, said incidents of gas-line strikes have decreased significantly as that work continues.

“There was an uptick in gas-line strikes a few months ago — I think that’s improved dramatically,” he said. “It certainly has from the standpoint of the work we’re doing in the township.”

Taylor said Armstrong is working to place conduit in older subdivisions in the township, bringing their “Network of the Future” service to the area.

“We don’t have a path in those areas, in those subdivisions, so we use what’s known as a directional boring machine,” he said. “We do that first and then we place our fiber in to create that new network.”

As required, Taylor said crews use Pennsylvania One Call to locate utilities ahead of digging.

“There’s always opportunities whenever you’re digging to maybe encounter something you were unaware of or didn’t plan on, and sometimes that’s the result: Something gets struck,” he said. “But as I said, it appears to me over the last few months that particular situation has cured itself.”

Ongoing efforts also have coincided with Comcast’s new franchise agreement as of June 1, seeking to expand its residential coverage to more than 8,000 homes in the township.

Meredith Klein, vice president of public relations at Comcast, said the company is likewise “committed” to utility regulations in the township.

“We take compliance seriously, and in the event a service line is encountered during our work, we work with local authorities and utilities to quickly and safely resolve the issue,” she said.

Consolidated Communications did not return a request for comment.

‘Communication, communication’

Last month, Cranberry Township held a “Manager’s Coffee” to address cable infrastructure projects in the region.

Township manager Dan Santoro said the event included representatives from all three service providers and was “pretty well attended” by residents.

“The first part was a general presentation, and then the cable companies broke out to their own tables,” he said. “From there, property owners could go to a particular table — for Comcast, Consolidated or Armstrong — about their specific property issue.”

Most of those issues, according to Santoro, were site-specific concerns as the service provider’s contractors worked through yards in the township.

“It’s really more about individual issues: A dog fence was cut or a sprinkler system or a sidewalk,” he said. “All the companies have committed to making those things right for residents; they’ll come back in and repair them and regrow the grass.”

Santoro said the township has been working to facilitate this ongoing conversation between residents and service providers.

“I would say the big thing we hear from the public, the residents, is: ‘Communication, communication, communication,’” he said. “They would like to know more about when, what and where a particular company is doing in their neighborhood.”

To that end, the township’s website maintains an updated schedule of work as well as contact information for the service providers.

“We’re reliant on the company to tell us where they’ll be working in the upcoming weeks, but we are trying to keep that (online schedule) up to date,” Santoro said.

As work continues through the winter, though, he said there are no plans for another “Manager’s Coffee.”

“We will continue to monitor the situation and if it warrants additional communication, we certainly would do that,” Santoro said.

Alongside the township’s cable upgrades, spokesperson Lee Gierczynski said Columbia Gas is conducting two of its own projects in the area.

“One is on Freedom Road, Valley Forge Drive and Powell Road — it’s part of that widening project,” he said. “And the second project was at 260 Graham Park Drive.”

The Freedom Road project includes relocating and upgrading lines as part of the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s overall upgrades in the area, according to Gierczynski, while work at Graham Park Drive involves updating existing infrastructure.

“The Freedom Road project started in August and it’s scheduled to complete at the end of the year,” he said. “The one at Graham Park Drive started in mid-October.”

And while neither project has experienced issues with struck gas lines, Gierczynski said, he urged anyone doing work to contact Pennsylvania One Call three days ahead of excavating.

“Anytime anyone’s doing any kind of project like this — whether it’s a contractor or an excavator or it’s just somebody who’s doing something in their home — they should contact 811 before they dig,” he said.