Columbia Gas to spend $2M replacing old pipeline in Pittsburgh

A $2 million Columbia Gas project to replace old steel pipeline will close streets around a section of Banksville Road in Pittsburgh from later this month through late fall.

The utility announced Thursday it will replace more than 1,000 feet of aging underground pipe along Wenzell Avenue, Carnahan and Banksville roads, Banksville Avenue and Tole Street. Construction will occur from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. weekdays, though some work could be done from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays, the company said.

Banksville Avenue (Old Banksville Road) will shut down as Columbia moves a gas main so city workers can replace a bridge connecting the street with the larger Banksville Road (Route 19) thoroughfare, spokeswoman Jennifer DuBois said.

An award-winning 2014 Tribune-Review investigation, Invisible Threat , reported how old, untreated steel pipe and cast iron pipelines that distribute natural gas to homes, businesses and other customers were prone to leaks, creating the potential for massive explosions like one on Feb. 9, 2011, that killed five people and destroyed several homes in Allentown, Pa.

Columbia plans to spend about $160 million replacing aging natural gas pipes this year. The utility expects to be the first in Western Pennsylvania to finish replacing its oldest and most leak-prone lines when the work concludes in 2029.

Other utilities expect to take decades longer. The Philadelphia Gas Works owns about half the cast iron pipe — the material responsible for most leaks and ruptures — still in use in Pennsylvania, the Trib investigation found.

The state Public Utility Commission on Thursday approved a plan that includes increasing Philadelphia Gas Works customers' rates to cut nearly 40 years off the utility's replacement timeline, which had been scheduled to wrap up in the year 2100.

The utility's new Long-Term Infrastructure Improvement Plan raises its 5 percent pipeline replacement surcharge on customers' monthly bills to 7.5 percent, which will raise an extra $11 million a year.

In addition, the commission allowed the utility to tack on a surcharge — bringing the total rate hike to 8.84 percent — for the next two years so it can recover $11.4 million it under-collected last year. That temporary charge will cost the average residential customer 85 cents a month, the PUC said.

Even with the extra money, PGW estimates it will take 48 years to replace all of its high-risk pipes, according to the order the PUC adopted Thursday.

Mike Wereschagin is a Tribune-Review staff writer. Reach him at 412-320-7900 or mwereschagin@tribweb.com.