By Natalie Geddes

Underwater dive team needed to shut off gas near Estevan

Jun 23, 2011 | 7:00 AM

SaskEnergy needed help from the Regina police dive team in order to get to one of their shutoff stations near Estevan, as the station's valves were 10 feet underwater.

SaskEnergy spokesperson Dave Burdeniuk says it was a first.

“Never in the history of SaskEnergy have we ever needed oxygen tanks and flippers to get to our equipment” said Burdeniuk.

There were a number of flooded customers in the area that needed the service cut. That’s when SaskEnergy called Regina police.

“We printed out diagrams of what they would be working with, then laminated them so they could bring (the diagrams) underwater,” said Burdeniuk.

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SaskEnergy crews sat in a boat while they communicated with the underwater officers.

At one point one of the divers remarked “there’s fish down here”.

It took an hour before the gas was shut off and the mission complete.

Burdeniuk says the operation was paid for by SaskEnergy but doesn’t expect to need the divers again.

Since flooding in Saskatchewan’s southeast started back up June 17, SaskEnergy has cut power to roughly 300 customers.

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