AUBURN – Crews will begin digging along Center Street on Sunday night, part of a summer-long natural gas line replacement program.

Northern Utilities crews will work their way from the Center Street/Russell Street intersection to Court Street over the next few months, digging up old cast-iron natural gas lines and replacing them.

“Hopefully, that part of the city will be all done this year, then we’ll come back next summer and do New Auburn and finish in Lewiston,” Project Manager Perry Robichaud said.

Northern Utilities crews concluded work on several streets in downtown Lewiston and around Bates College last summer. In Lewiston, only the Little Canada area between Lincoln Street and the Androscoggin River hasn’t been replaced.

They did some work in Auburn last summer. “But Main Street is done, and so is High Street, and all of Minot Avenue,” Robichaud said. “Both sides of Washington Street are done and so is Hotel Road. After this summer, the only part I’ll have left is New Auburn.”

The company is being required to replace all cast-iron gas mains in Lewiston and Auburn as part of a settlement with the state Public Utilities Commission. That came after a January 2004 explosion on Main Street in Lewiston that was blamed on a leaking Northern Utilities gas line. The explosion leveled the old Hotel Holly and the Lewiston Radiator Works, and injured five people.

The project in Lewiston involved digging at 1,700 sites across the city and replacing 28 miles of gas pipe. In Auburn, crews will have to replace about 29 miles of natural gas pipe over three summers. When the work is finished, crews will have replaced almost 57 miles of gas mains in both cities.

The city mailed notices to residents and businesses that will be affected by the work, and officials scheduled a May 3 meeting for residents to discuss the work.