Thousands of Natural Gas Leaks Found In Boston

poofmeisterp writes "Due to old cast iron underground pipelines, natural gas leaks run amok in Boston, MA. '"While our study was not intended to assess explosion risks, we came across six locations in Boston where gas concentrations exceeded the threshold above which explosions can occur," Nathan Phillips, associate professor at BU, said in a statement.' With 'a device to measure methane' in a vehicle equipped with GPS, Duke and Boston University researchers created a nice little map showing the methane levels in parts per million at different points in the city. 'Repairing these leaks will improve air quality, increase consumer health and safety, and save money,' study researcher Robert B. Jackson, of Duke, said in a statement. 'We just have to put the right financial incentives into place.' It looks like money is an issue. Imagine that."

Comments

Re:"Money is an issue"

[geekoid]

"why does it cost 1.5 mil to dig a hole and patch a pipe?"
engineering, laying pipe, testing remove old pipe properly putting the street back together all costs money.
It isn't 1.5 million to " dig a hole and patch a pipe"

Anyways, there are a lot of reason why ti's expensive. Mostly your ignorance on what it takes do do this work and keep a city running.
I suggest you study civil engineering. You come up with a better way that works, you will be rich.

Or do you thinking the utilities should just be able to dig up the street however they like, stop traffic when ever, and then not bother to put the street back together?

"not sure why lots of people think the previous should be the preferred way."
because the latter way is already being done by companies all the time.
I'm not sure why someone who clearly has some ignorant myopic view of how a city works would bother expressing an opinion based on nothing.