From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for April 14, 1989:

Kansas Public Service was in the process of counting the bare steel gas lines within its system so that the utility could develop a plan for replacing them. Bill Salome, KPS president, said this week that the local utility was beginning work on a comprehensive replacement plan in anticipation of new regulations by the Kansas Corporation Commission. Counting the bare steel lines, the first step in developing the plan, was expected to take about three weeks, and the plan would call for replacing all the uncoated lines in Lawrence over a period of years, Salome said. The KCC regulations, which were to be issued within the next few months, were prompted by recent natural gas explosions in Topeka and the Kansas City area. “We know that we have several thousand of the bare steel lines in addition to the 370 or so customer-owned bare steel lines,” said Salome. Plastic pipe had been used for natural gas liens to homes and for gas main extensions beginning in 1974, but bare steel pipe, which was susceptible to corrosion, could be in lines installed before that date.