Gas leak reported at MU Orthopedic Institute

The Columbia Fire Department and Ameren responded to a broken gas line Tuesday morning outside the Columbia Orthopedic Institute.

The intersections of Stadium Boulevard and Monk Drive, as well as Monk Drive and Hospital Drive, closed while Ameren crews fixed the line. The leak was reported at around 8:45 a.m. Monday morning. University Hospital spokesperson Jeff Hoelscher told ABC 17 News no one evacuated any buildings during the repair. Hoelscher said a construction crew working on the expansion of the Orthopedic Institute struck the gas line.

The struck line makes it the seventh gas leak caused by a third-party contractor this year in central Columbia, according to Ameren Missouri Gas Operations Director Mike Holman told ABC 17 News. That includes downtown, where several large construction projects are underway. Holman said the excavating crew on Monk Drive did make the necessary notification to dig, by contacting the Missouri One Call System, but did not know as of Tuesday evening whether a locating crew went out for Ameren to find the pipes there. For the other six strikes, though, Holman said crews did perform “locates” of their utility.

Holman reported an increase in year-to-date requests to locate their lines in the area. So far in 2016, Ameren has performed nearly 400 “locates”, nearing the same amount for this time in 2015 at 430. Holman said the construction boom mixed with a tangle of utilities downtown could account for the increase in struck lines.

“With the congestion that we have in between gas, water, cable, electric, sewer and fiber, with the economic growth and construction that’s occurring, that’s why I believe we’re seeing these third-party damages,” Holman said.

Utility companies like Ameren must report to the MOCS the areas of Missouri they want to be notified about when construction companies dig. When a company gives a notice of a project, it must provide the center the location and what methods they plan to use when they dig, executive director John Lansford said. MOCS references the notice with what utilities are in that area, and lets both parties know of the project. Utility companies then have two days to “locate” their utilities, and mark them with specifically colored flags.

Lansford said utility and construction companies can suffer $10,000 civil penalties each day for failing to report a dig, or for failing to perform a “locate,” Lansford said.

At least one gas line strike was to an “unmarked” line. A City of Columbia stormwater crew struck a line on Broadway, east of Tenth Street on June 22, according to city spokesman Steve Sapp. While they made the call to MOCS, and Ameren performed a “locate,” the crew still struck a gas line. Had the stormwater crew known of that line’s presence, they would have instead used hand tools to dig, Sapp said.

Holman said Ameren reviewed its process after that. The company hires USIC to perform its “locates” in Columbia, and did so for the Broadway project. While they appropriately marked a gas line being used by the buildings there, USIC was not aware of an “abandoned” line that Ameren disconnected and “capped.”

“We had it mapped, it just didn’t show up on the records that our locating company had,” Holman said.

Holman said since the incident, Ameren has changed the way it and USIC work downtown.

(Editor’s note, 7/12: An earlier version of the story reported a viewer tip claiming some were evacuated from nearby buildings due to people feeling light-headed. Hoelshcer told ABC 17 News MU Health did not evacuate any buildings.)