Woman Says Columbia Gas Workers Wrote Racial Slur On Pipe

NORTH ANDOVER, MA -- A woman is saying a contractor for Columbia Gas of Massachusetts scrawled a racial slur into a pipe in her basement after she called the utility about a gas leak. Rachel Moffat told the Valley Patriot that she noticed the n-word etched into the pipe while reviewing a video she had made to document the problem during the October 19 visit by the utility's workers.

"I was concentrating on seeing the gas leak. I didn’t notice the writing on the pipe at first, but when I looked at the video afterwards I noticed it. I can’t believe they would leave that in my home knowing I was making a video of the gas leak in the basement," Moffat told the newspaper.

As of Wednesday, Columbia Gas had more than 1,700 workers in Lawrence, Andover and North Andover as part of the recovery effort from the Sept. 13 explosions that killed one and damaged or destroyed 131 buildings in the three communities. Thousands of people in the Merrimack Valley have been without gas service since the explosions.

"We are deeply disturbed by this situation. This type of behavior is unacceptable, highly offensive and violates our Code of Business Conduct, which all company employees and contractors must abide by. Once we were alerted to this situation, we reached out to the homeowner and personally apologized," Columbia Gas spokesperson Judy Rakowsky said. "We are a company made up of a diverse work force and committed to upholding values that respect diversity in our company and the communities we serve. While we know the crews that were in the house at the time, we were not able to identify the individual(s) responsible. We continue to reinforce our Code of Business Conduct with our employees and contractors.”

For more on this story, see the Valley Patriot. Never miss another local news story: Get free local news alerts right to your inbox.

Patch file photo