Davis Residents Win Battle For New Gas Pipe
DAVIS (CBS13) - Residents have fought and won in their push for new pipes in a Davis community. At issue are leaky gas lines running through the Stonegate neighborhood.
CBS13's Derek Shore was live in Stonegate to explain what action PG&E is now planning to do.
There is finally good news for neighbors who have been living in constant fear when gas leak after gas leak occurred.
"The leak was actually right here," said David Johnson, a concerned Stonegate resident.
Johnson showed just how close that gas leaks was.
"You'll notice it's about 30 feet to my house; very scary," said Johnson.
But it wasn't the last natural gas leak here in the Stonegate community of West Davis.
"There was one, there was a second, and on the fourth one I became concerned and I contacted PG&E," said Johnson.
In fact, according to PG&E, there have been more than 50 leaks reported since 2006 in the Stonegate neighborhood. Five leaks were detected just last week, including one on the main line.
That's one too many for neighbors like David Johnson who says he lives with fear, especially after well-publicized gas explosions like the one in San Bruno last year.
"I'm very concerned about public safety and another explosion," said Johnson.
"These are different lines than what we saw in San Bruno. These are distribution lines which are smaller lines," said PG&E spokesperson Brittany McKannay.
Still PG&E is admits the number of leaks in Stonegate in the past years is higher than normal. And while they couldn't say why the leaks are happening, they announced they will replace part of the line.
"In this case we saw a combination of leaks on both the main lines and our service lines. So what we'll do is replace 2,000 feet of gas main line and then we'll be replacing service lines that are connected to that main," said McKannay.
Hopefully Johnson will sleep a little easier.
"I think for public safety this is fantastic," said Johnson.
