Damaged Duluth Gas Main Fixed, Residents No Longer Need To Turn Down Heat

Without residents' cooperation, neighborhoods were at risk of a full shutoff.

DULUTH, Minn.- The City of Duluth says home and business owners east of Lake Avenue no longer have to keep their thermostats low as crews have assessed and repaired a massive gas main that was damaged last week.

According to the City the natural gas main was struck within the ‘can of worms’ construction site on Thursday.

It’s the City’s largest gas main, and because the gas flows west to east homes and businesses east of Lake Avenue were asked to keep their thermostats at 62 degrees to ease the burden on the overall gas system while crews were hard at work.

Without residents’ cooperation, neighborhoods were at risk of a full shutoff.

Mayor Emily Larson, who was among those turning down the heat, says addressing the problem was about more than just fixing a broken pipe.

“So you have to worry about what’s coming out which is the gas but then you also have to worry about what’s getting in, in that case, there’s sediment that gets in there’s water around that pipe. the transition back to making sure that things are working well takes a little bit of time,” she said.

“We don’t want to experiment by just turning it on and then have sediment going into a lot of these intersections of underground pipes that need to work well we can’t have that material getting caught in there we can’t have that material getting somehow pushed into your home,” said the Mayor.

The City notified natural gas customers on Thursday after its largest gas main was damaged.

Gas was immediately shut off at that location, directly impacting one city-owned building.