Pgt Completes First Phase Of Pipeline Repair Job

Pacific Gas Transmission Co. has finished the first phase of $400,000 in repairs to its pipeline right-of-way near Valleyford.

Spokeswoman Susan Meyers said soil around the 36-inch and 42-inch pipelines was eroded when Rock Creek flooded last winter. The stream channel shifted, exposing some pipe that had been underground, she said.

The lines cross the creek downstream from Cottonwood Creek.

Although some protective wrapping on the pipe had to be replaced, Meyer said, there was no damage to the pipe itself, and the flow of gas was never interrupted.

She said crews worked the last two weeks of June to stabilize the lines by filling around them with soil removed from the stream channel.

The work has been discontinued while PGT obtains a wastewater permit from the Washington Department of Ecology.

The second phase of work to restore the stream channel and plant replacement trees and shrubs will probably begin in September, Meyer said. Completion should take only a few weeks.

She said the Rock Creek crossing was one of two eroded by flooding. The other was in Oregon.

The PGT line runs 600 miles from Canada to the California-Oregon border. Washington Water Power Co. takes some of its gas from the line.

, DataTimes