Vermont Gas has been doing flagging and survey work in Monkton over the past couple of weeks. Starting perhaps as early as tomorrow, Friday March 11th, they will start some of the clearing of the right of way. Here is an overview of the sequence of activity as received by the Town from Vermont Gas:
- Monkton surveying and flagging is underway. The crew was expected to start to move south from Hollow Road today.
- Tree removal and clearing of the right-of-way is expected to start soon, as early as tomorrow, starting with VGS owned properties. Tree removal will occur only in the right-of-way to which Vermont Gas has rights, so it will not affect landowners whose properties are not cleared for access. As you know much of our corridor is in the VELCO right-of-way, a good portion of which is already cleared.
- We expect to send out letters to Monkton landowners within 300’ of the pipeline either tomorrow or Monday, offering them the well water tests mentioned in the MoU at page 4 (Sec. IV.C).
- Drilling and probing for ledge and bedrock are expected to start within the next several weeks, partly depending on road conditions, moving from Hinesburg southward. It’s difficult to predict progress with probing because rock conditions vary so much. We don’t know where blasting will be needed until probing is done, but we won’t wait till finishing all the probing in Monkton to begin notifying landowners near blasting areas about their right to a well and foundation survey.
- As the probing produces results about where the ledge lies, well and foundation survey letters will start going out to landowners within 600’ of identified areas where blasting will be necessary (per the MoU at page 6, Sec. IV.G.3). This mailing occurs about three weeks before any blasting would occur. Landowners within 600’ will get a week-ahead letter and 24-hour notice before blasting, with whistles, horns and clearing of the safety zone in the minutes before the blast. (The Town, and schools and the district as required, will be noticed per the MoU at Sec. IV.F.2 on page 5 and in the CPG at p.45, and the blasting plan. We will tell the Town when the well/foundation survey letters start going out about three weeks prior to blasting and will send you a copy of that letter as you requested, and then we’ll provide the Town a one-week general notice of blasting as well. Our construction staff will be in communication with the Town’s Road Foreman and crews about road closures that could be necessary for blasting. Usually these closures are for just a few minutes.)
- Blasting is not expected to occur till at least April 1. It will likely be in the weeks after April 1 because we don’t yet have the probing information back to start the well/foundation survey process for landowners.
- HDD drilling, including under the Monkton Swamp, is expected in June and July. Advance geotech work for the HDDs could start next week (probing, drilling, etc.).
- We expect to start preparing the right-of-way for mainline construction sometime around June 15 (bringing in equipment and materials, posting work zones, etc.), and installation of the pipe followed by corridor restoration could occur in the latter July/August timeframe.
- Unscheduled at this point: Any later construction that is deferred owing to restricted access to parcels in the right-of-way.
Representatives of the Town have started attending the pre-construction meetings held weekly at the Vermont Gas field office. The Town is in process of hiring a construction oversight engineer.