Before the big leak in Alabama, crews were already addressing issues with the Colonial Pipeline right here in metro Atlanta.
Dacula Mayor Jimmy Wilbanks said Colonial employees started working on a section of pipeline that runs through his Gwinnett County city on Sept. 12. But the project — which, according to the city, was the "result of other issues encountered while repairing an initial leak(s) in early 2016" — appears to have stalled since more pressing issues arose.
"I think most of their folks may be over in Alabama," he said.
Colonial Pipeline spokesman Steve Baker confirmed as much Tuesday afternoon. But while city officials described the work as replacing Dacula's "entire section" of the pipeline, Baker said that Colonial employees were "returning to that Dacula section of the line to cut it out for a more thorough inspection of why it experienced a leak."
"That project was postponed so that we could send those resources to Alabama," Baker said.
The leak in Alabama has crimped fuel supplies across metro Atlanta for several days, leading to sporadic outages at local filling stations and rising prices at the pump.
On Tuesday, Colonial Pipeline said it had completed construction on a "bypass" to the leak and was testing the new segment. If successful, the line could be restarted by Wednesday.
It would still take several days for the "fuel delivery supply chain to return to normal," the company said in a statement.
As shown in the graphic below, which was created using data from the National Pipeline Mapping System, the pipeline has a significant (undergound) presence in metro Atlanta.
In Gwinnett, one arm runs straight through Norcross (near Greater Atlanta Christian School) to the southern end of Lawrenceville. Another runs east-to-west through Duluth before hitting the other side of Lawrenceville (near Briscoe Field) and proceeding to Dacula.
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