Parts of a Clairemont neighborhood were built atop a key strategic Navy fuel pipeline, and now the service is planning to move it from underneath homes, a school and a church, according to Navy records.
The pipeline connects Naval Base Point Loma to Marine Corps Air Station Miramar and is used to transport jet and diesel fuel between the bases, the Navy said.
The 17-mile long, 8-inch pipeline was built in 1954 just as Clairemont was being developed as part of the post-World War II suburban housing boom. The Navy was granted easements by the city to build the pipeline. However, over the decades residential development has encroached on the those easements, the service said.
Helen Haase, a Naval Base Point Loma spokesperson, said the encroachments were only discovered in 2011.
“We coordinate regularly and frequently with stakeholders to communicate our mission needs, but urban development can be widespread and challenging to monitor and restrict,” she said.
This is a problem, the Navy says, because it can't access the pipeline to conduct inspections or make repairs.
The pipeline passes directly under a house on Cannington Drive near Interstate 805 before passing under parts of several other homes and a Mormon church on Mount Abernathy Avenue. It then follows Mount Abernathy and Balboa avenues before turning south on Genesee Avenue and cutting underneath the north end of the High Tech High…
