Richmond gets $15.7 million federal grant for gas line work

Richmond Restaurant Week runs October 21-27

A third federal grant to Richmond Gas Works will accelerate the city-owned utility’s effort to replace aging cast iron gas mains with new, safer lines — and keep some of the cost from falling on ratepayers.

The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration is granting Richmond Gas Works $15.7 million to upgrade mains with pipes that resist corrosion.

The funds will help replace 53.79 miles of cast and ductile iron pipe, said April Bingham, director of the city’s Department of Public Utilities.

Richmond Gas Works is receiving a third federal grant to bring upgrades to aging pipes.

Cast iron and ductile iron corrodes more readily and is more like to break when the ground shifts than steel or other more up-to-date replacement material.

Bingham said the grant will speed work on replacing those lines by about three years.

Earlier this year, the city received a $39.2 million federal check to help fund a 32-year effort to replace aging pipes.

That grant came in the wake of a $10 million grant last year. Those two will fund replacement, repair or rehabilitation of nearly 50 miles of gas mains.

The grants cut years off the project of replacing the final 172 miles of cast and ductile iron pipe, Richmond Gas Works officials say.

Those miles are what remains of the 650 miles the city has been working to remove and replace with high-density polyethylene plastic and coated welded steel lines. Richmond Gas Works has been averaging about 15 miles a year since 1992.

The new grant is one of 60 the pipeline safety agency made in 20 states, totaling $196 million, that the pipeline safety administration awarded this month. The money comes through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act of 2021.

“Aging, leak-prone natural gas pipes can be dangerous, drive up energy costs for families, and harm the environment, which is why the Biden-Harris Administration is supporting funds to replace aging pipelines,” U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a statement.

Tristan Brown, deputy administrator of the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, said the safety push to cut gas leaks can also help save families and businesses hundreds of dollars on their gas bills by preventing leaks.

A leaking 4-inch gas main in Baltimore caused a 2022 explosion that injured three people, while leaks at joints in a 36-inch gas main, installed in 1952, caused gas to seep into a Jersey City house, causing a fire and explosion that hospitalized a person.

Read through the obituaries published today in Richmond Times-Dispatch.

Sarah Carson

Amelia Koehler

Kendall Watson Patterson

Robert Clifford Pearman-Hurt

Deborah D. Perry-Hoover

James Andrew Robinson Jr.

Stephen Sekerdy

Cloyd Kent Titus

Alexander Wallace

Dave Ress

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Richmond Restaurant Week runs October 21-27

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