THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, August 3, 1995 TAG: 9508010083
SECTION: NORFOLK COMPASS PAGE: 07 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY ALEX MARSHALL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 48 lines
Virginia Natural Gas is discussing changing the way it does business after citizens from Campostella Heights complained they received little notice that a big, new gas line was going through their neighborhoods.
The gas company has agreed to talk with the city's Public Works department to arrange better techniques and habits to notify neighborhoods of coming construction work.
Campostella Heights residents, led by Carrie Spratley, president of the Campostella Heights Civic League, say the construction work along Waltham Street has disrupted the neighborhood and aroused safety concerns.
Spratley said residents did not know of the work until they looked out their windows.
Virginia Natural Gas said it was following normal procedures, which have not caused problems in other neighborhoods. Usually people want gas lines and are not troubled by the construction, officials said.
At the July 25 City Council meeting, council members, company officials and residents talked a lot about whether it was customary to lay a 20-inch pipeline, one of the company's larger-sized lines, through a neighborhood.
The new gas line is needed, officials say, to provide better service to the city. During a severe cold spell in a recent winter, about 400 homes in the city could not get service because of transmission problems.
The company said it had laid 20-inch pipelines through residential areas in Virginia Beach and Chesapeake without complaints.
The work on Waltham Street already has begun. The city had torn up the street for other utility work, and the gas work is being coordinated with that work. But Virginia Natural Gas still needs a permit to proceed with the next phase of its work.
Before the permit is issued, company officials said they would meet with public works officials to discuss better ways to notify neighborhoods. Currently, Virginia Natural Gas officials say they depend on city officials to notify neighborhoods of impending work, if such notification was believed to be advisable.
The work on Waltham Street, part of a larger project to upgrade the distribution system in Norfolk, is scheduled to be finished this year or by early 1996. by CNB