BOSTON -- Mayor Tom Menino announced a comprehensive inspection of the city's 22-mile steam pipe system.
This comes after two recent explosions. One occurred at the intersection of Otis Street and Summer Street near Downtown Crossing in September.
A pedestrian and three Trigen workers were contaminated by asbestos that was reportedly released when the pipe burst.
The most recent happened on New Chardon St., when a pipe-over 30 years old-broke, spewed steam and sent a manhole cover flying. Asbestos was also released.
Officials now know what caused the blasts.
"These two events do appear to be isolated events, as a result of water getting in to their steam system creating increase in pressure," said Jim Hunt, chief of Environment and Energy.
The steam energy supplier, Trigen, has two weeks to visually inspect all of the city's manholes and use high tech equipment to literally find the hot spots.
"They are bringing in an aerial thermo-graphic survey of the entire system, basically bringing in a plane that can measure heat," said Hunt.
Boston's underground steam pipe system is very old and unlike other utilities, unregulated.
"Even though we regulate it on a 24 hour basis, there's no way to find every potential leak," said Nancy Sterling of Trigen. "We hope this comprehensive review of the system will help us find any potential problems."
Menino has filed legislation that would close the loophole allowing steam energy suppliers, like Trigen, in Massachusetts to go unregulated.
(Copyright (c) 2007 Sunbeam Television Corp. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
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