Mislabeled line leads to Nahant gas leak

NAHANT – Officials blamed a mislabeled Dig-Safe line after responding to a gas leak at a residence on Little Nahant Road Tuesday.”The Dig Safe line appears to be significantly off,” said Nahant Fire Lt. Dean Palumbo. “But stuff happens. They’ll shut it off in the street and repair it.”The gas leak was reported around 3 p.m. Tuesday at 45 Little Nahant Road, when a contractor struck a gas service line while installing a new sewer hookup for the home, police said.At the odorous scene, the trench excavated by contractors was approximately 10 feet away from the line of flags that indicated the supposed location of the gas service line.No one was hurt during the incident.National Grid spokesperson David Graves said that the utility company determines the location of utility lines by using maps it has on file or – in the case of service lines that connect the gas main to individual homes – by line of sight between the meter and the gas line.Mislabeling “does sometimes happen,” Graves said. “It’s not a perfect science, but I don’t think there is a perfect science.”Dig Safe spokesperson Lisa Powers added that utility workers also use a device similar to a metal detector that picks up the location of a utility line. Any accident will be reported and investigated by the state Department of Public Utilities, she added, so future incidents do not occur. Graves said that repairs from the weekend storm would delay the company’s internal investigation into the matter.Palumbo said he was just relieved that the incident was not connected to work National Grid has been doing on parts of the road.”They’ve been working on Little Nahant Road for quite a while,” he said. “It’s nice to see it’s only this.”Cyrus Moulton can be reached at [email protected].