Ordinance change to recover costs caused by increased gas line breaks


Frisco City Council approved an ordinance change in January in order to recover costs from hazardous materials incidents. The change is in response to the increase of calls to natural gas line breaks caused by subcontractors installing AT&T fiber-optic cables.


In the previous ordinance, the city did not begin assessing fees for recovery until the fire department had been on the scene for an hour.


“Usually we would have all units on the scene for an hour and then at that point we started charging them for the assets and equipment on scene, whereas now we start charging as soon as we get on the scene,” Frisco Fire Chief Mike Piland said.


The increase in recovery fees is expected to provide additional incentive to operators within the city to enhance efforts to avoid these types of incidents.


In 2015 the city responded to 21 incidents and spent a total of 134.5 hours on scene. In 2014 the city responded to nine incidents and spent a total of 74.75 hours on scene.


Piland said 16 of the 21 incidents in 2015 were primarily subcontractors hitting and breaking the natural gas lines. The other five were a result of other spills.


Piland said the breaks are not caused by one specific project but rather occur in multiple areas.


“What is happening is that there are [fiber-optic cables] being installed in Frisco neighborhoods that previously did not have them,” he said.


No more than eight homes have been evacuated during these incidents, Piland said.


Piland said city staff has also implemented measures to prevent another increase in gas line breaks from happening such as potholing—which is the digging of a test hole to have better visuals of underground utilities—and for the gas company Atmos Energy to have additional staff working with subcontractors to make sure gas lines are properly marked.


If any contractors have caused multiple gas line breaks, the city will revoke their permits, and they will not be allowed to work in the city.


The city suspended all work by a contractor installing AT&T fiber-optic cable in several Frisco neighborhoods after crews cut six natural gas lines in February 2015. 


“So we’ve put several measures to provide the maximum level of safety,” Piland said. “So while [construction is] going up, I would hope that the measures we put in place are there to reduce the number of incidents.”