Nat’l Grid must stop nonessential work after Woburn ‘scare’
The state Department of Public Utilities yesterday ordered National Grid to stop all nonessential work after excess gas that was “inadvertently” introduced to its pipelines prompted the company to shut off gas to about 300 Woburn homes — raising fears of a repeat of last month’s deadly Merrimack Valley gas explosions, with striking union workers saying they warned this could happen.
“Following today’s incident in Woburn, the Department of Public Utilities … ordered National Grid to impose a moratorium on all work, except for emergency and compliance work, across the company’s entire service territory, pending the results of DPU’s review of National Grid’s safety practices,” Peter S. Lorenz, a spokesman for the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs, said in a statement. “In addition, the department is requiring National
Grid to have an inspector on location for all work that could lead to abnormal pressurization until this review is complete.”
DPU also is hiring an independent evaluator to assess the safety of pipeline infrastructure statewide, Lorenz said.
When asked how concerned he was about the incident, Woburn fire Chief Stephen Adgate said, “I started to get chest pains; does that tell you anything?” Residents around Wyman and Hart streets in Woburn received National Grid robocalls at about 2:30 p.m., notifying them that workers would be shutting off gas in the area.
“It was frightening because of what happened in Lawrence,” said resident Ruth Kichton, 85, referring to the explosions last month that killed one, injured more than 20 others and have left thousands of other Columbia Gas customers without service. “I don’t know what’s going to happen. It was a scare.”
National Grid said a gas technician was doing routine maintenance on a regulator station about 11:30 a.m., when he “inadvertently introduced excess gas.” The company did not explain the three-hour delay before residents were warned.
“The crew quickly recognized the error, and within minutes, reduced the system to normal operating pressures,” National Grid said in a statement. “The area is safe, and National Grid has the situation under control.”
Technicians were assessing the safety of the system and hope to begin restoring gas service to homes today — a process that will continue through this week, National Grid said in a statement.
“They say there’s nothing to be alarmed about, but you don’t know until it’s over,” said resident Frank Dawson.
As National Grid teams went from house to house in Woburn yesterday, making sure gas was off, they were heckled by about 50 of the company’s more than 1,000 steel workers, who have been locked out of work since their contract ended in June.
“They’re endangering public safety by having inexperienced people deal with gas, something potentially very dangerous,” said Neil Crowley of United Steelworkers 12012-04. “They’re supervising things they’ve never worked directly with.”
Danielle Williamson, a National Grid spokeswoman, said the work was being done by “management employees with decades of experience, who would ordinarily be overseeing the work of our union employees.”