Gas infrastructure in Massachusetts: A recipe for disaster?

The Boston Globe: An underground labyrinth of leak-prone, corroding natural gas pipes. Mounting pressure on utilities to upgrade ancient infrastructure. A chronic shortage of trained workers. And a surge of retirements among state inspectors.

This is the backdrop for the natural gas fires and explosions that rocked the Merrimack Valley Sept. 13.

The gas lines that wend throughout the state, beneath city streets, and into people’s homes are overseen by a patchwork of bureaucracies and a regulatory system that largely trusts utility companies to police themselves.

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