Roderick Carter, an operations supervisor for Vectren, gave the Dayton City Commission an update on the project on Wednesday, July 22.
Vectren is focusing first on its oldest distribution pipelines that feed entire neighborhoods, and service lines that run from curbs to individual meters, said Chase Kelley, a Vectren spokesperson.
Work is also under way in Lewisburg and Washington Court House.
“There’s really not a community in our service area that will not be touched,” Kelley said, adding work is planned in Vandalia, Xenia, Fairborn, Yellow Springs, Troy and Piqua.
Vectren plans to replace a total of 17 miles of distribution pipeline in Dayton in 2009 and some 1,400 service lines. The pipes — which will be bored into the ground rather than trenched — will be placed behind curbs, to minimize impact to streets.
Work in neighborhoods around the University of Dayton began about 3 months ago, said Carter, adding that five miles of pipe have already been replaced in the city. Crews will next move across the Great Miami River to Germantown, Washington, Cincinnati and Smith streets along with Bolander Avenue.
Individual Vectren customers will be notified prior to work in their area, and again if their gas must be turned off while crews work. In many cases, energy will be rerouted to prevent disruptions, but that won’t always be possible. Some customers will be without service for two or three hours.
Once service is restored, a Vectren representative will assist homeowners to relight their natural gas appliances.
In January, the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio approved a base rate increase for Vectren customers in 17 west central Ohio counties to cover the cost of operating, maintaining and expanding the approximate 5,200-mile distribution system used to serve more than 318,000 customers.
Total bill impact, which included costs associated with this steel/cast iron replacement along with other programs was about $4 per month for residential customers.
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