A two-inch rupture in a gas line underneath Santa Teresa
Boulevard could cost up to $100,000 to repair, city officials said
Thursday.
Gilroy – A two-inch rupture in a gas line underneath Santa Teresa Boulevard could cost up to $100,000 to repair, city officials said Thursday.
The gas line was damaged Aug. 18 when crews working to widen Santa Teresa Boulevard inadvertently hit the line with a backhoe.
“It’s what I call a six-figure tear,” said Steve Beams, an engineer with the city who was at the site of the accident.
Repairing the tear, the size of a backhoe’s tooth – about two inches wide – wasn’t a matter of slapping some duct tape on the 4-inch distribution line. It took two hours just to shut down the line after it ruptured at 11:30 am.
PG&E worked until 6pm restoring service to the line. Fifteen area homes were evacuated and traffic was blocked in both directions. Emergency personnel were called to the scene to help keep the area clear.
Gas service was restored at about 5pm. A PG&E crew followed its usual safety protocol, digging around the broken portion, isolating the damaged line by clamping each end, cutting out about four feet of line and then replacing it with new line.
All of these costs will be factored into the final tab, which won’t be known for months, according to Don Dey, city transportation engineer.
“These things trickle in over the months,” said Dey. “PG&E will go back and do the costs and send the contractor a bill.”
The contractor is Granite Construction, but a subcontractor, Giacalone Electrical Services, was operating the backhoe that ruptured the line. If homeowners or businesses file claims related to the line break, Giacalone Electrical Services must pay them.
The cost of the repair will be settled between PG&E and Giacalone Electrical Services, a PG&E spokesman said. “We look at the factors involved then make a determination based on that of what the figure is going to be,” said Jeff Smith, a PG&E spokesman.
One key factor is whether Giacalone Electrical Services, the sub-contractor whose backhoe damaged the gas line, properly notified PG&E that they would be digging near the line.
Before construction crews dig near gas lines, they are encouraged to call a hotline to notify PG&E and other utilities so that lines can be marked to avoid accidents like the one last Thursday. It is not known whether Giacalone called the hotline. Representatives from the company could not be reached for comment.
If Giacalone did not call the hotline, they could be responsible for more of the repair costs. If they called the hotline but PG&E failed to mark its gas line sufficiently, PG&E could share part of the cost.
“We’re not going to cast any blame, at least not publicly,” said PG&E spokesman Jeff Smith. “We’ll just work out the incident with the third party,” said Smith, referring to Giacalone Electrical Services, which has a $823,277 contract for its work on the Santa Teresa Boulevard project.
The $7.5 million Santa Teresa widening project, which will also add a sidewalk, soundwalls and a bike lane to the boulevard, is projected to be finished in December 2005.
Crews working on the project hit another gas line two months ago, but the line, an older section made of steel rather than plastic, did not break.
By Leslie Albrecht Special to the Dispatch
