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Uniontown applies for grant for gas line project
Uniontown City Council signed off on a grant application to upgrade portions of the town's 50-year-old gas distribution system Tuesday evening. A required public hearing on the proposed project was held but there were no citizen comments.
Carey Spoon of Southeast Kansas Regional Planning Commission will be the administrator the grant for the proposed project if the grant is received. She came to the meeting with several documents that needed approval and signatures.
The grant is being sought from the Kansas Department of Commerce 2016 Small Cities Community Block Grant under the Community Facilities program.
The estimated project cost is $402,000 with a maximum grant request of $261,300, or 65 percent of the project. The city would pay $147,700 or 35 percent of the project.
The grant proposal would replace polyvinyl chloride pipe with polyethylene pipe at Madison and Seventh streets; Seventh Street and the alley west of Wall Street; from Uniontown High School to the intersection of 75th Road and Maple Road; First and Clay street to the Griffith residence; and South Hill, South Franklin and the McKinnis residence.
Surface laid steel pipe will be replaced with coated steel gas line with cathodic protection on the east side of K-3 Highway, 1.5 miles south of town, and the west side of K-3 Highway, 3.6 miles south of town. Beneficiaries of the project include households in within the city limits and 12 gas customers outside the city limits.
Mayor Larry Jurgensen asked Spoon what the city's chances are for being awarded the grant.
"I think it's a strong application," she said.
The grant deadline is Nov. 2 with notification of awards in January, Spoon said.
Gas improvements
The council has already been working on current gas lines.
The council purchased an odorant for the gas distribution system as a safety measure for citizens to detect any gas leaks. Natural gas is odorless and the odorant signals a leak in the system.
The odorant was put into the system in February. Calibration of the odorant was optimized by April, and since then Maintenance Superintendent Bobby Rich has received 17 calls from citizens smelling the odorant.
There were three calls in 2013 and seven calls in 2014, City Clerk Sally Johnson said.
One current leak needs to be addressed before the CDBG grant could be received and work begun, Rich said.
The council approved the a bid for materials and labor to remedy that leak, which is located between the John George property and Goldie Arndt property on the west side of town.
That leak is labeled a Class 2 leak.
"A Class 2 leak means a leak that is nonhazardous at the time of detection, but justifies scheduled repair based on probable future hazard," according the Kansas Corporation Commission website. "A class-two leak shall be repaired within six months after detection."
The low bid to repair that leak was from Utility Safety and Design Inc., Belleville, Ill., for $2,230 and was approved by the council. Black Hills Energy bid $4,100 for the project.
The council also approved Rich purchasing gas valves by the case and replacing those on residents' properties as needed.
The proposed gas improvement project should solve some of the current problems, Rich said.