I would love to know what was said to get him to saw into the conduit. When someone points at a pipe and says "I don't know what that does" it generaly doesn't inspire a person to cut it in half.
I mean, unless they thought the thing was totally abandon and empty, what other excuse could they have to cut it? Water, sewage, gas, fuel oil, electrical cables, telecom cables, high-pressure air, hydraulic fluid--just about anything you could put in a pipe would give you a darn good reason not to cut through it.
-John
