SaskEnergy issues warning

SaskEnergy has issued a safety warning in response to a high number of natural gas pipeline hits this year — including three in a 10-day period by the same contractor in Saskatoon.

“Both Saskatoon and Regina are getting more than their fair share of line hits because of all the work in new subdivisions,” SaskEnergy spokesperson Dave Burdeniuk said Friday.

“In Saskatoon, we did have one incident last month where the same contractor working around a new condo complex hit our gas line three times in 10 days,” he continued. “People are in a hurry. The construction season did start later. There’s a large volume of work to get done and as of today, we’re at 175 pipeline hits, most of those since May.”

More than half of the hits have been in backyards, Burdeniuk said.

“The pace of growth in Saskatoon and in Regina is such that there is so much activity going on and so much of the finishing-touches activity — so you’re talking fence installation, decks, landscaping, driveway paving, some of those activities — when we go back through our damage reports looking at them, we’re seeing a higher ratio of hits happening now in backyards,” he said.

“The risk is there for ignition, whether it’s a 16-inch, high-pressure transmission pipeline going through a farmer’s field or it’s a halfinch gas line at lower pressure serving a home,” Burdeniuk added.

SaskEnergy reminds people to call for line locates and make sure they have safe work plans for operating backhoes, trenchers and post-hole augers around marked lines.

Excavation equipment cannot be operated within one metre of a marked natural gas line. Work closer than one metre must be done with hand-operated tools, only after safely exposing or “daylighting” the line so it’s visible to those working near it.