Local Leaders Rip Gas Company's Response in Grist Mill Fire

After a truck caused a gas leak that led to  at the , it took Columbia Gas of Massachusetts nearly two hours to turn off the gas to the building. Local elected leaders said this was too long, and the delay contributed to the difficulty of fighting the fire. They compared the situation to  when it took nearly three hours to stop a gas leak because workers could not find the valve to shut off the service. A Columbia Gas spokesman said the situations are not the same.

Don DiNunno, spokesman for Columbia Gas, told Seekonk Patch the company received a call about the crash at 6:05 a.m. A responder arrived at 6:21 a.m. A valve was quickly found that would have shut off the gas, but the responder was told it was "too close to the fire" and could not be accessed. The next step, DiNunno said, was to find an alternative set of three valves that when turned off would shut off the gas.

"That required us to have some folks do some research to find out where the valves are located and to shut them down," he said. "And being a Sunday, we do not have people in the office, but we do have the capability of seeing the maps on the laptops that are in the vehicles of our service technicians, so that's how we're able to identify the location of the valves."

The first valve was turned off within 20 minutes, the second 12 minutes later, but the third took significantly longer to find and handle, and the gas was finally shut off at 7:58 a.m.

DiNunno said it was important the workers made sure they had found the correct valves.

"The way that system is designed, if you turn the wrong valve down, you could turn off the [gas for the] whole town," he said. "So you've got to make sure that you know exactly what it is you're shutting off."

Francis Cavaco, chair of the Seekonk Board of Selectmen, said the length of time it took to complete the operation was unacceptable. He said he would send a letter to Columbia asking that President Stephen Bryant come to the selectmen meeting on Wednesday. Bryant also appeared at a meeting last month regarding the Mill Fire.

"This is two fires within two months that involved gas problems," Cavaco said. "You know the old saying at the ball game is 'three strikes and you're out,' I'm not looking for three strikes."

He continued, "One of the things the board can do, we can stop issuing permits to the gas company. We're going to take a look at that. The majority of the board would make a decision on that. I have no problem doing that."

Whether Bryant would appear at the meeting on Wednesday is not certain. DiNunno questioned the usefulness of this happening.

"Our plan was, based on Mr. Bryant's last appearance at the board meeting, we were going to work on some improvements for the town of Seekonk and we were going to get back to them with a plan of action, and that's what we're working on now," DiNunno said. "So I'm not sure that going back in again on Wednesday without having everything together is going to accomplish much."

He stressed that Columbia had not received the request as of Sunday night, and his only knowledge about it came from Patch.

DiNunno said Columbia is working on two things for service improvement. The first, which he said could be put into action almost immediately, involves having additional people on duty during the early-morning, late-night and weekend hours who would have access to valve location records.

"Having additional resources in the future to be able to access this information is something that will move this along quicker," he said.

The second improvement is to respond to a request by the selectmen from last month's meeting for Columbia to identify all essential valves in the town and make sure they are working properly. The selectmen had set a November deadline on that.

Seekonk's representatives in the state legislature were at the scene of the fire and vocal about what they considered to be Columbia's slow response. State Sen. James Timilty blamed the situation on the utility being short-staffed and lacking local personnel who would be familiar with the town's valves.

"It's the same thing with National Grid, public utilities that have a monopoly … they don't care as much about rate payers, they care about share holders," Timilty said. "So they do just what everybody else does, and in the private market you're allowed to do that, but when you are a public utility, you have an obligation to public safety."

State Rep. Steven Howitt noted that Columbia officials said they would improve on their efforts following last month's incident. He said, "Apparently, they're not too good on following through on their promises."

DiNunno declined to respond to these statements.