Rerouting a portion of a natural gas pipeline that serves Ellijay will go through a section of River Park and under the Coosawattee River.
Atlanta Gas Light recently asked county commissioners for permanent and temporary construction easements on a portion of the South Main Street park property.
“They’re planning on running under the river with a replacement. They’re going to go from the connection point there at River Park under the bridge. What they’re going to do is drilling under the bridge and going about it that way,” said Charlie Paris, commission chairman.
The new line is being put in to allow for a more sufficient amount of gas to be supplied when needed, Paris noted.
The construction will be centralized in the parking lot near the park pavilion.
“They’ll be working from River Park, and they have specifically indicated they will not be blocking access to the spring there where people get water,” said Paris.
The board of commissioners voted to grant the requested easements after an executive session at their most recent meeting.
Paris said the work could begin in one to three weeks and should take about six weeks to complete.
“It should be a fairly short thing. It’s not going to be like one of those big projects they had before,” he added.