Olds town officials are pleased with the way a gas leak that occurred Uptowne was handled.The leak occurred Aug. 5 at the intersection of 50 Avenue and 51 Street as an excavator was digging during construction in the area.The gas leak was reported shortly before 11 a.m. that day. RCMP, the Olds Fire Department and ATCO Gas employees responded. Nearby residents and businesses were instructed to shut their windows and some businesses were evacuated. By 2:22 p.m., crews reported they had found the source of the leak.Levels were highest at Craig's Store. Once the leak was isolated and dealt with, the building was ventilated.“Absolutely (we're happy with the response),” Olds director of corporate services Garth Lucas says. “They did a good job.”Interim director of operational services Scott Chant agrees.“It went extremely well,” he says. “Everybody worked together.”Chant notes the Olds Fire Department not only dealt with the gas leak but also responded to three other calls during that same time. He says that's impressive, especially considering they're a volunteer department and their members have other jobs.Lucas and Chant say the gas leak was “no one's fault.” They say the gas line that was ruptured (which was located on the edge of the sidewalk along the Craig's building) did not show up on any maps the contractor, Rubydale Asphalt Works, had. Nor did any detectors find it.Chant says the line was likely installed some time in the 1950s.“We checked plans, they come out in the field and use locaters to try to locate it,” Lucas says. “It wasn't located with their locaters and it wasn't on the map and yet physically it was there.“If you want to assign fault, you assign fault to the guy who installed it 50 years ago and then died,” he adds jokingly. “There's nobody here who knows precisely what's under there, so like Scott said, when you dig it up, you sometimes find surprises.”“All the paperwork they have shows them that there's no gas line crossing the street so they're not looking for it, so they dig,” Chant says.“It happened to be a steel line. If it was a plastic line, it would have severed right where they were digging and it would have been much easier to repair,” Chant adds. “But being a steel line, it pulled out of the ground and separated somewhere else.”Chant says the site superintendent and the excavator operator dealt with the issue properly and professionally. The moment they discovered the problem, they shut everything down and called emergency crews.Chant says part of the reason it took so long to repair was that crews had to be called in to mark where all the other lines were such as phone, sewer, etc.“They had to wait for all of that to come before they could actually dig into the street to do the repair,” he says.
