The fiber optic line break that squelched phone and Internet communication from here to Duluth on January 26, 2010 is receding further into the past, but resolution on who is responsible for it could take some time.
On March 15, Qwest’s Minnesota/North Dakota president, John Stanoch, forwarded to Cook and Lake County commissioners a letter that Qwest Corporate Counsel Jason Topp had sent to Duluth Steam Cooperative Association’s insurance company. In that letter, Qwest, owner of the line that broke under a manhole at Second Avenue East and Second Street in Duluth, claimed that the break was caused by “a combination of heat and steam from Duluth Steam facilities located within the same intersection.”
The letter goes on to say that the combination of heat and steam, most likely over a period of time, “should not have been reasonably anticipated by Qwest” and that if it did cause the line break as indicated by “visual inspection, the physical evidence, and the expert reports,” the Duluth Steam infrastructure “has either failed in some fashion, been improperly maintained, or has been poorly designed.”
Counselor Topp wrote, “Duluth Steam employees have communicated that at one time they sent Qwest a letter warning of dangers associated with the placement of Qwest facilities near steam plant at an unspecified location in Duluth” but claimed that Qwest disputed this assertion.
Duluth Steam General Manager Gerald Pelofske wrote a letter of his own to Lake and Cook County commissioners in response to Qwest’s letters, which had been sent to U.S. senators Amy Klobuchar and Al Franken, U.S. Representative James Oberstar, Minnesota Representative David Dill and county commissioners — but not to Duluth Steam.
Pelofske’s letter stated, “We do know with certainty that there were no high pressure steam leaks which could have caused the damage. …The steam arising from this manhole was not steam arising from a leak of a high pressure/ high temperature steam main.
“We suspect that the problem incurred by Qwest is due to, in part, the failure of Qwest or its contractors to appropriately install or adequately insulate the conduit in which its fiber optic lines are contained when crossing steam mains.
“We have warned U.S. West Communications, a predecessor to Qwest, about this problem in the past with respect to the conduit installed at Second Avenue East and Second Street, Duluth, Minnesota and other locations,” Pelofske wrote.
Duluth Steam sent the News-Herald
a copy of the letter, dated May 10, 1996, that contained the warning it had sent to U.S. West. It looks like it was typed with a typewriter on a piece of paper with official letterhead at the top.
Duluth Steam Assistant Manager N. Reuille had written Dan Sherer at U.S. West: “On May 9, 1996,” he wrote, “I went up to inspect where the contractor for US West was in the process of installing conduits for telephone lines which had to cross our steam mains at two locations. Thefirst was just outside of their manhole on Second Avenue East where they elected to go under our main. Thesecond one was on the upper side of Second Street where they laid the conduit system above our steam main without any insulation to protect the plastic conduit.
“At this second area we are concerned because of problems they have had in the past when crossing our steam mains without any protection from higher temperatures related to high pressure, high temperature steam mains.”
It seems that both companies may attribute the outage to the steam lines, but who could or should have prevented the damage may be a matter of contention. Duluth Steam has transferred resolution of the issue to its insurance company.
The Cook County News-
Herald
talked to Joanna Hjelmeland, a representative from the office of Qwest president John Stanoch, about the letters it received from Duluth Steam, but Qwest was not able to send back an official response before press time. President Stanoch will be talking with county commissioners at the April 27 Cook County Board of Commissioners meeting at 9:30 a.m., according to Hjelmeland.
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