WARNER ROBINS, Ga. — A recent state report says probable violations within the City of Warner Robins gas system may be hazardous to people's life and property, and it faulted the city for not fixing it sooner.
When state inspectors looked at the City of Warner Robins' gas lines last October, they found two serious leaks in the system.
Their report says one had been leaking gas for at least 10 months. That was out in Jeffersonville, but the city is still responsible for that upkeep.
The other was on North Davis Drive. A spot that, according to the report, hadn't been checked since at least 2017.
During the inspection, the Georgia Public Service Commission found the pipe had been knocked over and it was blowing gas.
City leaders say they hadn't been notified of either leak.
Now, the state plans to fine the city $22,500.
"Gas leaks are dangerous to life and property. Period," says Mayor Randy Toms.
Toms and Montie Walters, who heads the Utility Department, say two department employees who knew about the Jeffersonville leak never documented it, or reported it to superiors.
But, the state report says a crew member told inspectors that the leak was reported.
"It supposedly got reported, but there was no report on it," says Toms. "It had never been properly entered into the system... they left the leaks as they were and neither of them actually work for the city anymore."
He says one of the two employees was fired and the other was transferred to work for ESG Operations.
ESG is the company the city recently hired to take over the gas system.
The report goes on to say there were some "grade two" leaks listed from the city's previous surveys. Grade two leaks do not need to be repaired immediately, but the state says they need to be cleared within one calendar year.
The report says these leaks were still listed as problems over a year later.
"A lot of those issues are in my district," says Councilman Larry Curtis. "As elected officials, we should be protecting life and property and to ignore that and not do anything, that's disgusting."
Toms says their gas system is a lot to manage.
"It's not unusual for somebody that owns a gas system to have leaks, to have probable violations from the PSC, and they are always dealt with in a timely manner."
The second violation the report outlines is "atmospheric corrosion" on some of their pipes.
According to Walters, that means there was some rust on some of their pipes and valves. Something he calls a typically easy fix, but it has to be documented by the staff and in some cases, it wasn't.
The third issue in the report comes down to under-qualified employees.
"The deficiencies with leaks and atmospheric corrosion that were observed by Staff demonstrate either a) deficiencies with Warner Robins' process for qualifying their employees to perform the grading of leaks... or b) deficiencies with Warner Robins process for monitoring and tracking deficiencies with their system that require remediation," the report says.
As of Thursday, Walters says there are now no serious leaks in the city's system and the two major leaks listed in the report have been fixed.
He says the problems in the state report all come down to staffing and poor documentation from staff, which goes back to training.
Walters says during the pandemic, they were operating with half of their staff. They went from close to 40 employees down to 19.
According to Walters, the growth of the system and the city is not helping them in terms of staffing. They manage close to 35,000 work orders per year.
"That is one of the major issues, is the ability to hire and retain employees in the gas department because they can go to private companies and Robins Air Force Base and they can make so much more money than they can in Warner Robins," says Toms.
Walters says with ESG now operating their gas department, they are back at full staff and have "an army of people" working on the violations that were brought to his attention.
Councilman Keith Lauritsen says as their system gets older, it can create some problems.
"I do know that it was a concern of our department head, for the gas service, and also the mayor and I was made aware of it."
He says that is one reason the city has hired ESG to take over its gas department.
"You want to make sure it's managed well. The larger our city gets, the more gas we have, and I feel like it was a move in the right direction. Not making any excuses for any violations that we've had."
As for the possible fine, Toms says the city probably won't have to pay it and they're working with the state commission and ESG to avoid future problems.
"Typically, you work them all down to fixing the issue and training," he says.
Walters says he is working with ESG to do a full leak survey of their entire system, assessing every meter and working on a capital improvement plan.
Curtis says he is deeply concerned about the violations and wishes he'd known about them sooner.
"I didn't know about any of it," he says. "I'm happy we have someone coming in who is going to pay closer attention."
Over the phone, Councilman Charlie Bibb said he was made aware of the issues during a closed session.
“If there were issues that weren’t being addressed immediately, that’s concerning. But, I don’t think that was the case.”
Councilman Kevin Lashley echoed that sentiment saying he has full confidence in the decisions being made and the issues that were brought up are being addressed.
"The situation is very concerning, okay. I don't want to ever make any mistake about it, that the number one priority is safety. Next, is working with the staff to get the problem fixed. The staff now includes the city administrator, it now includes ESG and it includes Montie Walters to get the problem fixed."
Everyone agrees, having ESG Operations take over the gas system is a step in the right direction.