After explosion, Xcel inspecting gas lines in St. Paul

[GWJ_CAS]

St. Paul, Minn. — Ray Mayer took a hammer and saw to one wall in his laundry room this morning. He was helping crews who are looking for what could be a deadly mistake buried in his yard.
A home on the next block was destroyed last week when a sewer cleaner hit a natural gas line that was accidentally run through an underground waste pipe.
Mayer had to cut a hole in the wall, so that workers Corey Hilla and Brian Leonard could break open a sewer plug in his basement and stick a camera down the pipe.
It's a scene playing out in dozens of homes southeast of the Ford Motor plant in St. Paul in recent days. Officials say shallow sewers in the neighborhood and a street reconstruction project in 1991 may have left a dangerous legacy.
During the project nearly 20 years ago, new gas lines were installed in holes drilled through the ground, rather than open trenches dug through yards -- a process that is cheaper and faster.
But the drills may have run pipe right through sewer lines dating back to the 1950s. That could eventually cause clogs, and prompt homeowners to have their drains cleaned out with power augers that can cut the gas lines. That may be what caused the break that leveled the home on Villard Ave.
It's the latest in a series of similar problems dating back to 1999. One underground leak prompted a blast that drew state regulators and thousands of sewer inspections, paid for by Xcel, in 2005.



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[AULupstate]

Directional Boring!!!!!!! FANTASTIC!!!!!!!!!!

But my yard isn't all dug up!!!!!!

Granted the house exploded and killed my neighbors but, hay, my yard looked great.

[yahoo]

that was good AUL....hahaha.....well , will it come to people forcing people to open cut instead of boring everything??? that is crazy! how many other sewer mains are drilled through???? how can you pothole those locations???? this could get crazy!

[GPGrasshopper]

There was another one in Minnesota in 2000 that blew up another house:

"As with a similar explosion in 2000, a plumber cleaning a clogged sewer line busted through a gas main. The gas main had been installed using a technique called "trenchless boring" that required no industrial digging but in this case and others resulted in the line ramming through the sewer pipe."

It is a big issue all over the country. I was Googling it and ran accross this site:

http://www.crossboresafety.org/

It is definately worth reading about!