A lot of people who live in the neighborhood are extremely anxious … we are as concerned as they are.”

Warren Town Manager Jan Reitsma

What’s the breaking point? Is it one more water main break? Is it two more gas line breaks? How much do we need to go through?”

Water Street Cafe owner John Valerio

Monday’s natural gas leak at Water and Baker streets had the potential to be a calamity, and town officials are meeting with contractors, emergency management directors and National Grid to try to prevent a similar near-miss from happening again.

The leak, at a previously undocumented high pressure line, is the second gas and fifth overall leak so far in the Bristol County Water Authority’s increasingly troubled $2 million water main replacement project. There have also been three water leaks.

It occurred Monday afternoon, just after workers from the BCWA’s contractor for the job, CB Utility, hand-cleared an area around a low-pressure buried line, as required in the case of buried gas lines. Though utilities maps showed the low pressure line and workers knew it was there, Warren Town Manager Jan Reitsma said there was no indication that a high pressure line lay right next to it. As contractors cleared the low line and then proceeded to open a trench adjacent to it they struck an area around the high pressure line, dislodging an “unrestrained end cap” that officials say was likely supposed to be concreted in place, but was not. Instead, it had been wedged up against a sewer line. Removing the end cap allowed thousands of gallons of high-pressure gas to escape.

SEE ALSO: Traffic re-routed around construction in Warren

“We had a tremendous amount of gas escaping over two hours at high force,” Mr. Reitsma said. “Anything could have happened with a small spark.”

Warren Town Council president Joseph DePasquale said Tuesday that the situation was extremely dangerous, but the town was also very fortunate. If that end cap had been knocked loose without the line being exposed to the air, he said, “those sewer lines would have been filled with gas and we could have lost half the town.”

With no National Grid workers on site, police and fire crews hastily evacuated homes in the area, cut power to much of the town and waited for utilities workers to arrive and shut off the gas. It took several hours, and National Grid workers were still trying to repair the leak and reconnect all buildings to gas service as of Tuesday evening.

Though disaster was averted, the emergency affected hundreds of Warren residents, forced several restaurants to close for one to two nights, and inconvenienced many others.

Town officials now want answers, and Mr. Reitsma plans to meet Thursday with emergency management officials, National Grid, the BCWA and other involved parties for a frank, private de-briefing session.

Mr. Reitsma said Tuesday that at the very least, he wants to see National Grid workers on scene for the duration of the project, so the town will not waste valuable time calling for help in the case of another leak. In addition, he wants to ensure that all safety procedures are being followed by those on the site. He said he also wants to ensure the public that while the water main replacement is not a town project, police, fire and planning officials are doing everything they can to make the project go as smoothly as possible. While acknowledging residents’ anger and frustration, he also said it’s too early to search for scapegoats:

“I don’t want to jump to conclusions,” he said. “It’s entirely premature and probably inappropriate to point the finger at these particular contractors,” he said of CB Utility. “There is no way that you can control all the factors, especially in the (underground) environment we have on Water Street. A lot of people who live in the neighborhood are extremely anxious … we are as concerned as they are.”

Business nightmare

Apart from the five leaks, the pace of work and impact on the area’s businesses and residents is also much more than anyone expected. Businesses “are frankly suffering,” Mr. Reitsma said.

One of them is Cafe Water Street, a small cafe at the Warren Town Wharf that relies heavily on seasonal summer business. Between the gas leak and the detours and construction around his establishment, Mr. Valerio said he is barely hanging on and his business has plummeted.

“From my perspective as a business owner, this is not going well,” he said. “We’ve lost electricity, we’ve lost gas, we’ve lost water. For a seasonal business this is it; this is the busiest time of the year. You’re driving us out.”

Mr. Valerio said he’s had issues with the project even before the leak occurred; much of his recent problems, he said, stem from the disrupted traffic pattern around his restaurant that he said often changes with little or no notice. Such issues make it difficult for customers to get to him, and with work expected in front of his establishment Wednesday, he questioned whether there would even be any access at all.

“There has to be some better planning than this,” he said. “I have no faith that (contractors) aren’t going to completely block the driveway.”

While Warren Town Council members tried to assure Mr. Valerio Tuesday that he might be eligible to apply for construction insurance to recoup his losses, he said that’s not enough.

“I’ve got employees, I’ve got vendors who aren’t going to get paid because of this,” he said. “What’s the breaking point? Is it one more water main break? Is it two more gas line breaks? How much do we need to go through?”