Pipeline work resumes

Press, 3 February 1984, Page 4

Pipeline work resumes

Work has resumed on the liquefied petroleum gas pipeline between Lyttelton and Woolston.

Blasting work was stopped by the Labour Department on Tuesday after three boulders from the work-site rolled down a hillside into a Horotane Valley orchard.

One of the boulders, believed to have been loosened from the site barriers by the blasting, came to rest several metres from where

two men were working.

Mr Warren North, project manager for the contractor, McConnell Dowell, Ltd, said that Labour Department safety inspectors had approved the resumption of blasting yesterday.

Two blasts were done yesterday and the blasting work was expected to be completed today. The same explosives used in earlier blasts were used, but in smaller sections and smaller quantities. All

neighbouring orchardists had been warned of the blasts, Mr North said.

Mrs Betty McGrail, one of the owners of the orchard where the boulders fell on Monday, said that neither of the blasts yesterday had caused problems. In the first’about six small rocks had been dislodged, but these had not landed on any property, while the second created a lot of dust.