CORDOVA – The Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) has awarded a $2.8 million grant to the City of Cordova to replace the existing 6 miles of cast iron gas lines in the city limits.
“This can be a lifesaver for all of us,” Mayor Jeremy Pate said during Tuesday’s Cordova City Council. “2015 wasn’t that long ago when we had that house blow up. And that’s a terrible situation where a man lost his life and it was directly caused by cast iron gas lines. To get that stuff out of the ground is fantastic for our city.”
Pate said the funding will also pay for GIS mapping equipment and leak detection equipment. The funds will be given to the Cordova Waterworks and Gas Board.
The Natural Gas Distribution Infrastructure Safety and Modernization (NGDISM) grant program is aimed at mitigating safety risk and methane emissions from the highest-risk, legacy natural gas distribution pipes, said the U.S. Department of Transportation said in a press release last week.
Other Alabama municipalities receiving grants were Tallassee, Graysville, Lanette and Fultondale.
The grant program, established by the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law under the Biden Administration, provides nearly $200 million a year for a total of nearly $1 billion over five years for the modernization of municipality- and community-owned, nonprofit high-risk natural gas distribution pipes, as well as equipment to detect and mitigate leaks.
“These grants aim to improve high-risk, legacy pipes, creating hundreds of pipeline jobs and modernizing infrastructure that has been around for decades and in some cases even nearly two centuries,” the press release stated.
