The Town of Ignacio operates its own gas system for residents and businesses. For the past several months, a former employee and a town trustee have challenged some gas system practices as seriously unsafe and illegal.

Those discussions took up the entire town board meeting on Sept. 3.

Since May this year, former public works employee Robert Overturf has complained to trustees about improper, illegal, and unsafe gas system practices, as well as installation of a water meter that contained lead.

He said he had brought these issues to the public works director and the town manager, and nothing had been done. He said he resigned because he didn't want to be liable if something went wrong.

Trustee Tom Atencio agreed with Overturf's concerns at the May 13 board meeting. "This is going to hit us," he said. "It's been brought to the attention of supervisors, and nothing's been done."

On June 18, Overturf told trustees, "The town manager never got back to me." Mayor Stella Cox responded, "We'll give the town manager a directive to contact you."

On July 2, Atencio, who works in the gas industry, challenged what he referred to as "hot taps," a term referring to opening a pressurized gas line to insert a fitting. He cited the amount of gas that escapes during the process and said it's unsafe for the person doing the work, and possibly the entire area around where the work is being done. He described a different process that releases very little gas.

Overturf again pressed his concerns at the Aug. 6 meeting and called for both the town manager and public works director to resign.

In response to the concerns, Town Manager Lee San Miguel called in Colorado Springs-based consultant Wes Whitley to review town practices. He was in Ignacio last week and was at the town board meeting.

Atencio wanted Public Works Director James Brown to clarify how employees do a hot tap.

Brown laid out pipe Ts and plugs on the table. "We don't do hot taps," he said. "When we work on one of these lines, they can't be turned off with a completion plug. We have to turn off one or two blocks of customers."

He referred to it as "hot work" as opposed to "hot taps."

"We're talking about apples and oranges," Atencio responded. He reiterated what he said is the much safer method of tapping into a gas pipe.

"There's a lot more gas coming out with James's method. It's blowing you in the face. That's what I'm trying to get away from," Atencio said. He asked if there are fire extinguishers present during the work.

Whitley said the process to cut into already installed and pressurized lines was to cut it with a pipe cutter. "It starts blowing gas. You still haven't severed the line. Then you put the expansion plug in. What we are proposing is, the only time gas is blowing is seconds, from when the plug comes out and the insert goes in."

He continued, "This assumes you know where all the valves are, and they're tested to know they work. You need fire extinguishers, full body protection (including the face) in case there's an explosion... For the first few times this is done, the fire department should be present."

Parts of Ignacio's gas system are old, Whitley said. "There are a ton of small issues here. ... Some of your system probably goes back to the late 1940s or early 50s." There were no regulations on this until 1972. Whitley suggested some of the places in the system that are causing trouble now were installed when the line was installed, with no gas flowing.

Overturf said, "The short time I was with the town, we did a couple of those (taps) with gas blowing, no fire extinguishers, no fire resistant equipment... We knew we couldn't turn the gas off. We suggested to James to turn off the plug. The weather was like today (sunny and hot). James said, 'No, we've done this a thousand times.' Gas was blowing all over, in (town employee) Stan Cox's face."

Cox's wife is Mayor Stella Cox. Neither was at the meeting.

Mayor Pro Tem Alison deKay cut off Overturf, calling his allegations a personnel issue to take to the town manager.

Whitley said, "There's equipment so you don't have to work with blowing gas, but there's always the possibility" of something going wrong. "If you really need a hot tap, get an experienced contractor and a certified welder. I think the issue now is the service Ts," where individual service lines join the main line. "Hot taps are totally different," he said.

He clarified to the Times that a hot tap involves penetrating a main pipeline to hook in another pipe. Hot work can be on any size of line and is basically maintenance. "That's what was being discussed" in a way that minimizes the worker's gas exposure, he said.

Brown asserted, "We've never done a hot tap since I've been here." Those would be contracted out, he said.

Overturf cited pipeline safety rules and referred to a gas flow regulator that wasn't working. "It's reportable to the PUC," he said.

That's if it's on the gate valve where the gas comes into the town system, Whitley said. "On a service line, it's a maintenance issue."

Overturf responded, "That's the point I wanted to make."

Whitley was conducting training with town employees last week to be prepared for a Colorado Public Utilities Commission inspection. There was reference to a town policy manual being re-written to formalize safety procedures.

He also referred to a recent PUC inspection and a letter from the agency. "They can fine you $100,000 a day for every day you are out of compliance," he warned. "The only way to get out from under it is sell the system to someone else." But expect a big increase in gas bills with that, he added.

Atencio suggested bringing in a third party to look for any issues before the next PUC inspection. "We need to know what to do to be in compliance before they start hitting us," he said.

Discussion turned to system record keeping and data retrieval, whether it's on paper, in computer hard drives, or in the digital cloud.

Whitley said records must be kept forever, starting with the regulations in 1972.

Audience member Kasey Correia referred to a fine related to record keeping.

Brown said, "This is nothing new. It dates back before any of our times" with the town.

Whitley said, "The rules started in '72. You were required to keep all those records. Where are they? They are to be kept for the life of the system." Data security is an issue as well, he said.

"You can put in a lot of equipment for less than paying those $100,000 a day fines," he warned. "It needs to be centralized, not on one person's machine. Hard copies are a disaster. Cloud drives are nothing but a big box. You throw papers in there. The PUC comes and you try to find it. You better have a system."

Brown said, "Right now it's hard copy until we figure out our digital security."

Overturf said he kept records on the cloud.

Whitley said, "The letter said the PUC expects you to keep doing it. If it's on a computer in your system, you can make pdfs and save those to the cloud, but I wouldn't use the cloud as your primary storage."

The PUC doesn't say how records have to be kept, but when they show up, they want to see the records right now, Whitley said. "I think we've negotiated the fine away. You can use that to make the system better."

Most utilities upgrade their systems a little at a time, he said. "You are at a point where you have to do a lot real quick, and it's painful."