By Scott Taylor,Staff Writer

Lewiston and Auburn would be the first cities to get new natural gas lines, according to a deal being considered by the Public Utilities Commission.

Commissioners are scheduled to vote Monday on a settlement with Northern Utilities that would have the company replace all cast iron natural gas pipes buried in Lewiston and Auburn by December 2008.

The company has been replacing cast iron pipe sections, like the one blamed for a January 2004 Main Street explosion, at a rate of about 3 miles per year since 1985. At that rate, the utility will finish in about 43 years.

“The question for us all along has been how to balance safety for the community with reasonable costs,” said Wayne Jortner, an attorney with the Maine Office of the Public Advocate. That group was asking the utility to replace all cast iron pipe statewide within 10 years.

“We were very concerned because doing that could lead to some very high rates for natural gas users,” Jortner said.

Northern Utilities has a 128-mile-long cast iron network in Maine. About half of that is in Lewiston and Auburn. The rest is in the Portland-Westbrook area.

According to the deal between the public advocate, Northern Utilities and the PUC, Northern Utilities would concentrate its work in Lewiston and Auburn, at a cost of about $7 million, Jortner said. Those costs will be passed along to natural gas users in the form of a rate hike – probably about 5 percent, he said.

“In today’s dollars, it equates to natural gas customers writing one check for $286, but it would really be spread out over several years,” Jortner said.

The three groups will reconsider the Portland-area work later, after most of the Twin Cities work was nearly done.

“Maybe we can apply something we’ve learned up there to the work that needs to be done in Portland,” Jortner said.

A leaking cast-iron pipe led to an explosion on Jan. 12, 2004, on Main Street in Lewiston, according to the PUC. The blast and a subsequent fire demolished Lewiston Radiator Works and the former Hotel Holly. Five people were injured.

Northern Utilities crews were in Lewiston last summer, replacing cast iron lines along Main Street. Public Works Director Paul Boudreau said he plans to meet weekly with NU crews this summer to make sure the pipe replacement work doesn’t interfere with city road projects.

“We have so many projects going on this summer, and then here comes Northern Utilities,” Boudreau said. “Both are very important, so we want to make sure we work together. We don’t want them digging something up that we’ve just finished.”

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