By JOSEPH KELLARD
The utility company will finish repairing a section of a conduit, at Lawson Boulevard and Weidner Avenue, which was installed over the winter and spring as part of a major project, LIPA representatives said. A water seal had failed at that location, and LIPA hired an outside consulting firm to determine the cause.
³We¹re in the middle of an investigation,² LIPA spokesman John Bruckner said at an Oceanside community meeting, hosted by the Town of Hempstead, earlier this month. ³We know where it failed, and now we¹re trying to determine exactly why it failed. But we do now have a plan for action to make a permanent repair.²
Last September, LIPA started a project to install a 4,000-plus-foot underground transmission circuit pipeline, which encases a 69,000-volt transmission cable line feeding power to area homes and businesses, from Ocean and Atlantic avenues in East Rockaway to Lawson Boulevard and Weidner Avenue in Oceanside.
The utility company originally had said the job would be completed by Dec. 1 and that the road would be repaved by the new year. But several setbacks, including equipment delays, difficulty coordinating multiple contractors and dealing with frigid temperatures, prolonged the work into April. But when the water seal failed in May, once again the road was ripped up at Lawson and Weidner. Concrete barriers were also reinstalled, shutting down a lane on Lawson¹s southbound side in front of the Long Island Rail Road station, and once again creating heavy traffic as utility crews worked to repair the pipe.
LIPA sent materials to a lab to determine whether the seal had failed or if some material in the cable line itself had become faulty, said LIPA spokesman Bert Cunningham.
³That would help determine what the prescription would be for a resolution to the problem,² Cunningham said.
While awaiting the test results, LIPA is looking at two strategies to resolve its problems with leaky pipes. One strategy involves using a better water seal to prevent any kind of intrusion of water into the cable encased by the pipe. The other is to improve the bonding material that wraps over the jacket where the spliced cables are conjoined, Cunningham said.
During the community meeting, resident David Simon asked if construction crews could shut down Lawson for a day and repair the road in one shot, rather than over a two- or three-week period. ³Get it over with in a day,² he said.
Cunningham said that while the project will be completed in early July, the road repair will come after the week of July 4, which falls on Wednesday.
³They are waiting until the week after July 4 so that they can get it all done in one shot, without the interruption of a holiday in the middle of the week,² Cunningham said. ³It will probably take a couple of days to do the road work.²
At the community meeting, resident Keith Andoos told the LIPA representatives, ³I hope we¹re not going to have to pay you guys [for this problem].²
Cunningham said that the cost for the project will not come out of LIPA¹s pocket. ³The cost is associated with the original contractor,² Cunningham said. ³This is something that the contractor has to step up to pay.²
Some residents suggested that LIPA run the pipe line along an area parallel to the railroad tracks, so that if the pipe needs repairs it would not inhibit traffic when construction crews make them. But Bruckner said that it would be too costly, in the hundreds of millions of dollars, to relocate the line.
Comments about this story? JKellard@liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 287.
