LAWRENCE, MASS. (WHDH) - The Department of Public Utilities has ordered Columbia Gas to inspect more than 700 homes after a gas line that was replaced following the 2018 Merrimack Valley gas disaster began leaking last Friday.
DPU Chairman Matthew Nelson outlined in a letter to Columbia Gas on Tuesday a list of actions the company must take “to restore full public confidence in the safety of the gas system in Merrimack Valley.”
Columbia Gas will have to complete quality control work on about 713 homes to ensure it’s in compliance with Massachusetts and federal law by Oct. 18, according to Nelson.
They will also need to pay for a third-party, independent audit of all gas pipeline work.
Hundreds of people were forced out of their homes Friday morning after preparations for a road paving project triggered a gas leak in the area of South Broadway and Salem Street in Lawrence.
Officials say contractors working for the city accidentally punctured an active gas main while conducting a routine water valve check.
A preliminary investigation also reportedly suggested a gas valve used in the incident wasn’t compliant and should have been disabled last year.
This gas leak came just over a year after the Merrimack Valley gas disaster, which left one dead, dozens injured and more than 100 structures destroyed or damaged throughout Lawrence, Andover, and North Andover.
The series of explosions and fires on Sept. 13, 2018, had been caused by a gas line that became overpressurized during a routine replacement of old cast iron pipelines in Lawrence, officials concluded last October.
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