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Santa Clarita Residents May Smell Gas Off Sierra Highway

Santa Clarita residents may smell gas for the next two to four months while a SoCalGas project takes place off Sierra Highway.

The construction work began on Sept. 8.

“Crews will be working Monday through Saturday from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. and the odor of natural gas may be present in the area while the work is being completed,” said Marisol Espinoza, the public affairs manager for the Southern California Gas Company.

The project is a part of the Pipeline Safety Enhancement Plan.

The construction work will be happening along Sierra Hwy, beginning south of Newhall Avenue, to San Fernando Road and ending just south of Balboa Blvd, according to Gas Company officials.

“The work is expected to last approximately six to eight months (about two to four months within the City of Santa Clarita), although weather and other factors affecting safe working conditions could change the schedule,” said Espinoza.

The plan was filed in August 2011 and was approved by the CPUC on June 12.

About the Pipeline Safety Enhancement Plan, according to the SoCalGas website:

At Southern California Gas Company (SoCalGas®), the safety of our customers, our employees, and the communities we serve has been and will continue to be our highest priority. Reflecting that commitment to safety, we construct, operate, and maintain our pipeline system to meet or exceed applicable federal and state regulations and requirements. SoCalGas routinely performs various pipeline safety and maintenance tasks, including patrolling, inspecting, testing, repairing and replacing pipelines.

All natural gas transmission operators in the State of California are regulated by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), and in 2011 the CPUC ordered the operators to each develop an Implementation Plan to achieve the goal of orderly and cost-effectively testing or replacing all natural gas transmission pipelines in their system that have not been pressure-tested.

SoCalGas supports this extra added measure of pipeline safety ordered by the CPUC, and submitted a proposed Pipeline Safety Enhancement Plan (PSEP) to implement the directives of the Commission which was approved in June of 2014.

While SoCalGas is proud of our safety and reliability achievements thus far, we will not become complacent and will challenge ourselves to be even more diligent in maintaining the overall safety of our pipeline system and infrastructure. We believe that all customers will benefit from the added testing and safety validation of our transmission system.

The approved Pipeline Safety Enhancement Plan (PSEP) identifies various pipeline sections throughout our system that have not been pressure-tested, or for which there is no record of a pressure test, and slates them to be pressure-tested or replaced. SoCalGas will be notifying customers, and the public, when pressure testing or replacement activity is coming to their neighborhood.

The Plan also includes provisions to upgrade, replace, or retrofit hundreds of mainline valves in the system with technology that allows them to be opened or closed remotely by system operators from a central control location, or that automatically shuts off the flow of natural gas in the event of a large pressure drop.

Santa Clarita Residents May Smell Gas Off Sierra Highway

2 comments

  1. Hi my name is Rick and i was wondering because my wife works in Santa Clarita. My question is,is this harmful to pregnant women because my wife is pregnant….

  2. Smells pretty bad. Faint odor of gas. 2-4 months? I suppose you gotta do what you gotta do.

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About Kimberly Beers

Kimberly Beers is a Santa Clarita native. She received her Bachelor's Degree in Journalism from California State University, Northridge in 2013. While attending the university, she focused her attention on news writing and worked as a primary news writer for the campus' award winning radio station and televised news program. She began writing news stories for KHTS in 2014 and hopes to have a lifetime career dedicated to writing and sharing the news