PG&E work on Magnolia Ave. to continue on Thursday, Dec. 19

Sarah Belle Lin

PG&E workers prepare to work on gas line on Magnolia Ave. on Saturday, Dec. 14.

This past Saturday, the main and only thoroughfare to Piedmont and Millennium High Schools was closed to allow PG&E to cut and cap a decades-old gas line under 12 feet of concrete. “It’s probably been there for 50 years,” said Pete Palmer, PUSD’s director of facilities who is overseeing construction of the new STEAM building. “It’s in the way of our number seven vault, which is a new transformer; it feeds new power to the STEAM building.”

However, when workers dug in Saturday, “they encountered a can of worms,” said Palmer. “It’s not just a simple pipe to the main; it’s a whole jambalaya of pipe and there’s electrical conduit over it. It’s a big mess.”

An excavation site on Magnolia Ave. on Saturday, Dec. 14.

PG&E will return Thursday, Dec. 19  at 5 p.m. to finish the work. “We were able to work with Overaa and the city to complete the work without closing Magnolia Ave,” Palmer said in an update Tuesday. “But just in case, it would be best for the community to avoid using Magnolia Avenue after 5 p.m. on Thursday.”

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