Natural Gas Pipeline Near Fletcher Parkway Gets Clean Bill of Health

Motorists passing a northern intersection near Fletcher Parkway and Jackson Drive the past four weeks have been seeing an exam under way.

A key natural gas pipeline for San Diego County was being checked, its inspector said Tuesday.

The verdict?

“No problems found,” said Jerry Steed, who oversaw the  work for Integrity Inspection Services of Texas.

Tuesday afternoon, the metal shoring shield was lifted out of the ground—the boxlike structure that allows workers in a trench to operate safely.

Steed, a 59-year-old El Cajon resident, said the Southern California Gas-owned pipeline had its final inspection Dec. 19 and the ground should be ready for landscaping by Friday.

The 36-inch natural gas transmission line is one of the main feeders for San Diego County, he said.  The inspection took place near the intersection of Parkway Drive and Jackson Drive, across the street from the Comerica Bank site.

Pipeline checks have been going on for three years, Steed said, including elsewhere in La Mesa.  Work is being done by a crew of six (including two traffic flagmen) for ARB Inc. of Lake Forest—in Orange County.

This line, installed in 2000, goes up Jackson Drive toward Lake Murray Boulevard and out toward Santee to Riverside County, Steed said.

It’s been active for the duration of the inspection—but at a lower pressure, he said.

No leaks were found after a series of checks, which included an automated “pig” that at first detected a possible reduction in pipe thickness from the inside. But  human inspections afterward—involved high-tech sensors including X-rays, like a sonogram—found the line was fine, Steed said.

A 6,000-gallon Baker tank loomed next to the dig. Steed said about 4,000 gallons of groundwater was pumped into the tank daily—the result of rainwater and local irrigation flowing down natural trenches to the site, about 6 feet down.

That water, in turn, is taken away for proper recycling, Steed said.

A sand-and-water truck—a cement truck in other uses—was being used to fill in the trench.

Saturday afternoon’s natural gas leak across Fletcher Parkway at the Vine Ripe Market was unrelated to the inspection work, he said.