One of the great customer benefits to our being a community-owned utility is that we reinvest in our systems to ensure safety and reliability. Often that process goes fairly unnoticed. That’s not the case in West Greenville right now. 

People living on, and motorists driving along, West Fifth Street will notice GUC crews and contractors blocking off part of the road for the next two to three months. They will be replacing old steel gas mains with new polyethylene lines, as well as replacing aged service lines that run from those mains to customers’ meters. 

“As these steel gas lines age, they can deteriorate and crack or break,” said Durk Tyson, Gas Systems Engineer. “We try to replace this piping before it becomes a safety or reliability issue for our customers. When we receive a report of a leak, we look into whether it’s an isolated issue and if it’s in our customers’ best interest to simply make a small repair, or to repair and then come back and replace whole sections of pipe. For this project, we felt it was best for our customers if we moved forward with replacing these pipes.” 

“This project is an example of the ongoing efforts of the Gas Department to ensure that we deliver natural gas via a system that is safe and reliable” said Anthony Miller, Gas Systems Director. 

Work has been underway along 3rd, 4th, and Nash Streets for a couple of months and now the project is moving to 5th Street from Bancroft Avenue to Roosevelt Avenue. Similar projects along North Village Drive and West Village Drive have recently been completed, allowing crews to move forward on this project. 

“It can be a bit of an inconvenience, but we try to keep disruptions to our customers’ service to a minimum,” said Durk. “That’s especially important because so many people depend on natural gas from GUC for efficiently heating their homes this time of year.” 

Traffic will continue to flow in both directions along 5th Street, but with work being done on the South side of the street, lanes will be narrowed during construction. The project is expected to wrap up around the end of March.