Crime & Safety

Middle School Without Heat Until Friday After Gas Leak

Pipeline feeding into gym needs to be replaced, so the school's main building will have no heat through Friday morning.

students are being told to wear layers to school this week as the school is without heat through Friday morning so that an old gas pipeline that leaked Tuesday can be replaced.

Middle School Principal informed parents of the shutoff after a of the school’s nearly 900 students, teachers and administrators, as well as staffers at the adjacent offices of the and at around 11:30 a.m. Tuesday.

officials allowed classes to resume and district offices to reopen after the school’s gas service was shut off approximately 40 minutes later, according to PG&E spokeswoman Katie Romans.

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The leak was located in an underground pressure distribution line that feeds the gymnasium, according Tim Ryan, the district’s director of maintenance and operations. The pipe likely dates back to the early 1970s, Ryan said. The district manages its own

Ryan said concern about gas odor on the school’s campus dates back one year, but the odor had been faint and periodic since then, which prevented PG&E crews called to the site from locating it.

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“Honestly it was hard to tell if it was gas or the smell from the [SASM] sewer plant across the street,” Ryan said.

Because the odor was stronger Tuesday morning, district officials were able to use an electric gas identifier to locate the source of the leak, Ryan said.

The pipeline had been worn over a long period of time, Ryan said, as a result of the ground settling at the school, which was built on an old landfill in 1972. When the school’s elevator was built in 1996, Ryan said, a geologic report concluded that there would be an additional 12 inches of ground settlement over time. That settlement has obviously occurred, as there used to be no stairs leading to the gym and now there are five, Ryan noted.

The district is having the pipeline replaced and new shutoff valves are being installed. The gas shut off was absolutely necessary, Ryan said.

“You don’t mess around with gas,” Ryan said. “You have to wait until the gas line is completely devoid of gas before you start welding on it.”

Although the main school building that houses most of the classroom are without heat, the portable classrooms where art and music classes occur have electric heaters, Ryan said.


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