By Curt Yeomans

Gwinnett Daily Post

The City of Lawrenceville is getting nearly $8 million from the federal government to help rebuild part of its gas utility system.

U.S. Rep. Lucy McBath, D-Ga., announced the funding on Monday. The city is getting a $7.7 million grant to replace, or repair, old pipeline infrastructure in the city. The federal funding will cover the entire cost of the replacement project.

Lawrenceville City Manager Chuck Warbington said it will specifically cover the cost of replacing nearly 20 miles of pre-code steel and polyethanol gas pipelines that have been in use since the 1950’s and 1960’s. That’s about 10% of the pipelines in Lawrenceville’s gas system.

“What we’re replacing is something that is not currently standard (in the gas utilities industry),” Warbington said.

Lawrenceville has a sprawling gas system that serves not only the city, but also customers in Walton and Newton counties. Warbington said the system has a total of about 53,000 customers.

“We’re the second largest municipal gas provider in the state of Georgia and 16th (largest) in the U.S., so we have a pretty large gas system,” the city manager said.

It’s estimated that the program will reduce methane emissions by 1,000 metric tons, according to McBath’s office. The congresswoman’s office said it is also expected to support about 400 jobs at businesses and industries that use Lawrenceville’s gas lines.

“We have seen the damage failures of our critical infrastructure can have in our country, and we must work hard to ensure we keep the people of our community safe, our economy growing, and our environment clean,” McBath said in a statement.

Warbington said the replacement project is expected to begin later this year and take about three years to complete.

“We had plans to do it over a period of time,” he said. “This accelerates it and corrects some issues related to old pipe and leakage and things like that now.”