Project manager fields questions regarding gas line route

December 14, 2020–9:00 p.m.

STAFF REPORTS

Rome City Commissioners got an update Monday night regarding a new gas line project to serve an expansion at International Paper in Coosa.

The project approved by the Georgia Public Service Commission consists of 7.8 miles of pipeline.

The western end will be at Shorter Avenue and Redmond Circle and the eastern end will be at Kingston Highway and Goodman Road.

It will tie into Atlanta Gas Light’s existing system at both ends.

During the meeting, project manager Todd Cape addressed concerns about the proposed route, which includes Charlton Street in the Summerville Park neighborhood.

Cape said there was an extensive route analysis.

“We consider environmental concerns, street crossings, railroad crossings, levees, wetlands, and anything else that would be a risk to the installation of the line and later maintenance of the gas line,” he said.  “All of those factors feed into feed into that risk analysis.  It is given a score and basically, we look at those scores to see which of those routes has the lowest risk.  Then we look at traffic and other concerns.  Construct-ability is also a huge one that we have to look at.”

Cape answered a specific question regarding why they decided to go down Charton instead of nearby John Davenport Drive.

“We originally did have it going down Davenport,” he said.  “However, in looking at crossing that creek at that location in approaching Davenport, we could not construct it with the depth of that creek and the limitations that we have on the gas line installation.  Drilling that creek at that depth would have pushed the exit of the gas line much further than the Davenport intersection.  So, we would have had to loop that line back to go down Davenport.”

The nine-month project is slated for completion in early fall of 2021.

It will come with some intermittent lane closures.

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