By Conrad Dudderar
Senior Staff Writer
Yukon residents may have noticed work crews digging up sidewalks and yards in local neighborhoods.
This is part of an ongoing system improvement project Oklahoma Natural Gas started in the area months ago.
“When a line replacement project begins, it can take on several different phases, which can take time,” said ONG Public Relations Manager Cherokee Ballard.
This line replacement and improvement project will allow ONG to continue providing safe and reliable gas to its customers, Ballard added.
In many cases, moving natural gas lines to the front of homes helps keep ONG crews from entering customers’ backyards.
The ONG spokeswoman addressed how neighborhoods are selected to have the improvements made.
“We have a team that assesses all of our system to determine where we will be working doing an evaluation of all enhancement projects,” Ballard said. “This work is being done as our team analyzes where the work is needed.”
ONG officials have made concerted efforts to contact Yukon residents in affected neighborhoods that work would be done in front of their homes.
They worked with ONG contractors and walked the neighborhood to speak directly with residents. If the resident wasn’t home, ONG left a door hanger with a phone number for customers to call with any questions.
The line replacement project is expected to take a few months to complete, according to Ballard, who noted it’s difficult to put an exact timeline on projects like these due to many circumstances.
ONG is Oklahoma’s largest natural gas distributor in terms of customers. A regulated public utility, ONG serves more than 877,000 residential, commercial and industrial customers statewide.
