Pgt Tackles Big Pipeline Upgrade Job Crews Wrestle 20-Ton Sections Into Place Near Westmond, Idaho

This was one BIG worm.

Suspended above a hillside trench, steel pipe maybe 200 feet long wiggled from two slings as the sideboom operators did the Caterpillar twist.

The serpentine cylinder weighed 20 tons, not counting the dirt flaking away like scales. On the ground, workers would cut the tubing into shorter lengths for the haul down to the base of the hill.

New pipe, hot dog-colored and already bent to conform to grade, was staged for the grueling uphill portage.

If all goes according to plan, said Rod Van Heusen, replacement of onehalf mile of Pacific Gas Transmission Co. pipeline across Highway 95 from Lake Cocalalla will be completed by Tuesday.

Van Heusen, a PGT acquisition supervisor, said year-round demand for natural gas affords little time for wasted motion on the $2 million project.

“There’s really no good time to shut it down,” he said.

The construction has nothing to do with any degradation of the line, which was surveyed with a “smart pig” sensing device before the work began.

The “pig” detected no loss of steel thickness as it passed through Westmond, Van Heusen said.

And, he addded, the PGT “A” line has never suffered a break in its 36-year history, unlike the Northwest Pipeline Co. trunk that snapped twice in Western Washington last winter as the soil around it subsided.

The Westmond segment was pulled from the ground because the U.S. Department of Transportation requires thicker steel when the number of housing units within 660 feet of a pipeline exceeds various thresholds.

Last year, Westmond inched into a new category. New pipe, 0.505 inches in thickness, will be substituted for the existing 0.438-inch line.

Van Heusen said the pipe quality is also upgraded.

The A and parallel “B” lines run 612 miles from Eastport, on the Canadian border, to the California-Oregon border. The B line, installed in 1992, already meets the higher standards.

In fact, the equipment wrestling with the A line was crawling over the soil covering the B line, which continued to carry gas south to Spokane and other intermediary points on its way to California.

Van Heusen said the contractor for the work here, Sheehan Pipeline Construction Co. of Tulsa, Okla., helped build the B line, and also handled upgrades made on the A line last year at Athol.

When they finish, the line will be pressure-tested up to 1,600 pounds per square inch using water from the lake, Van Heusen said. Normal operating pressure is 911 pounds.

The pressure will not be boosted when the line is reopened, Van Heusen said.

The water, once used, will be sprinkled onto the surrounding fields to minimize erosion.

Van Heusen said the right of way will be restored with slope protectors, to divert runoff, and grass.

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