April 2015, Vol. 70, No.4
Features
Making One-Call Better
The One-Call system is the starting point for preventing accidentally damage to underground utilities.
The process involves three simple steps:
• The project owner or property owner contacts the local One-Call center before construction is to begin and provides work site location and information;
• One-Call notifies member companies with utilities in the area to locate and mark their utility lines; and
• The utility locates and marks routes of their buried lines, either with company personnel or a contractor locating company.
Today that initial call can reach the local One-Call agency simply by punching in three numbers: 8-1-1.
Indeed, thousands of accurate One-Call locates are made every work day, but clearly there is room for improvement. Annual reports of the Common Ground Alliance (CGA) document that a significant percentage of utility hits involve the location process: no One-Call locate was requested; the utility owner failed to properly locate and mark the job site; or locates were inaccurate.
A session about How To Make One-Call Better was a part of the Damage Prevention and Safety (DP&S) track at the 2015 UCT show. Industry consultant and DP&S coordinator Walt Kelly provides an overview of ways to make One-Call more effective.
Four directions
Kelly said basic One-Call improvement initiatives fall in four general categories.
Broader One-Call Membership – A large number of water and sanitary sewer service providers do not belong to One-Call, therefore in many instances across the country these utilities cannot be marked through One-Call. In the past, state highway departments and railroads resisted joining One-Call due to concerns about over-notification, excavators not calling before they dug and a lack of enforcement of the rules – all issues the highway departments and railroads believed they could handle better than One-Call systems. With the efforts of the Common Ground Alliance, much progress on these issues has been made and these arguments no longer have as much validity to support them.
Streamline One-Call Procedures – Changes in mapping technology are streamlining One-Call procedures. The use of the internet to share photos of the dig area among the facility operator, the call center and the excavator is opening many possibilities for improved accuracy and communications. Consider the issue of abandoned lines: if excavators could drop locator balls when finding an abandoned line, then send latitude/longitude, facility type, size and other pertinent information back to the call center, this could be entered into the map database. Over time, information could be developed on these abandoned facilities, and shown on call center maps sent to excavators, with very low man-hour requirements.
Training Locator Personnel – As the technology of locating keeps improving and the number of lines in the ground continue to increase, locators will have to improve their skills utilizing new technology. Failure to improve skills in differentiating active from abandoned lines and failure to improve locating accuracy in congested areas will prove costly in terms of lawsuits from damages. Will locators be allowed to use the “depth” feature of their locating equipment to improve accuracy?
Who Makes the Locates? – The decision about whom actually makes the locates may change over the next decade: Will utilities use contract locators for efficiency or have their own employees do the locates for better accuracy?
A One-Call perspective
Chris Stovall, director of operations, Texas811 provides their perspective on the status of On-Call. During 2014, Texas811 processed more that 2.5 million inbound ticket locate requests.
Advance Notification – Texas is larger than France. Houston is actually closer to Kansas City, MO, than it is to El Paso, TX. I only say this to let you know how much territory we’re covering. We responded to 2.5 million inbound locate requests last year. I personally don’t see how any locate crews ever go home. For now, the 48-hour model works, until laws or regulations require a change.”
Member Base – We are always working to increase the member base. We have three full-time Ombudsmen whose job is solely concerned with Texas811 exceeding its own goals for growing its member base. Last year we added 108 new members. Not only do we work with business with the larger, more well-known operators, but we also actively pursue smaller, yet still very important, cities and municipalities. Texas811 has five damage prevention managers who travel all across the state seeking out new opportunities while spreading the message of safety. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a water, gas or electric line, damages to underground utilities are preventable and it’s our mission to spread that message from the Panhandle all the way down to the Gulf Coast and everywhere in between.
Educating Members – Texas811 takes a lot of pride in the service provided to our customers and members. Texas811 leads by example and constantly holds training classes, Q&A sessions, round-table discussions and workshops to get input from the field, as well as training organizations on what we do and educating people about why calling before you dig is important. If anyone should ever have questions or requests of this nature, our staff is ready to help (see related sidebar).
Improvements That Make One-Call Better – Implementing the 811 number has made it easier and more user friendly for the members and excavators to process their locate request, and certainly easier for the average homeowner or property owner. The process has improved due to technological advancements in GIS data, new map software and advanced services that make it easier for our customers. A lot of the processes have been automated with the click of a button. We have streamlined questions and made it more user friendly. We have also spread the word of damage prevention, getting people familiar with the process and how it works. Knowledge is the key and that was the biggest issue in the past – people simply did not know.
Staying Relevant – We believe the most important step in improving the One-Call system is staying relevant and continuing to improve on the level of service we provide to our members as well as excavators. Developing innovative ways to make the process simpler is important; people like simple and easy. If we continue to make the process simple and friendly, then people will have no issues using the service. One of the key selling points to the average homeowner or property owner is “it’s free.” We always ask them to contrast that with the cost of repairing a damaged line, or worse, injury or death from digging blindly. It’s a no-brainer.
Utility perspective
Dirk R. Dunham is director of gas programs, Consumers Energy, one of the nation’s largest combination utilities, providing electric and natural gas service to nearly 6.5 million of Michigan’s 10 million residents, in all 68 Lower Peninsula counties.
New Michigan One-Call – Michigan’s new MISS DIG law authorizes MISS DIG (Michigan’s One-Call center) to establish One-Call procedures. The law requires that MISS DIG request input regarding these procedures from all interested persons (utilities, excavators, stakers, governmental agencies, etc.).
The MISS DIG law requires that marked facilities must be hand exposed prior to using power excavating equipment within four feet of the marks. The utilities are expected to stake within 18 inches of buried facilities and can request assistance from the utilities in locating their facilities if they are not found within 18 inches of the marks.
Obviously the accuracy of staking has a significant impact on preventing damage to buried lines, but the accuracy of the locate ticket is also important. Excavators sometimes request staking at a simple address (123 Main Street) and forget that they need to attach the new water service at 123 Main Street to the water main on the opposite side of the street. “Stake both sides of street” must be included in the description of location so that the staker understands the complete scope of the locate ticket.
Errors on broad descriptions of tickets can also be a problem. For instance, a simple directional error (1/4 mile east of 43rd Avenue instead of 1/4 mile west of 43rd Avenue) in a rural location can place a ticket one-half mile away from the actual location of the planned excavation when the One-Call operator places the location on a map. If a fiber optic or pipeline has less than a half-mile buffer on the facility footprint, they may not receive the ticket, regardless of the specific address listed on the ticket.
The Michigan Damage Prevention Board (MDPB) has been recognized as the organization to identify and resolve any questions about details within the law and to advise the MISS DIG organization on addressing these issues through revisions to their procedures. The MDPB is made of representatives from utilities, MISS DIG, contractor associations, contract locators and the Michigan Public Service Commission.
A recent example is the MDPB’s recommendation to add options for the MISS DIG positive response system. Excavators are required to check positive response before digging to assure that all utilities have completed their staking. To eliminate some confusion about the positive responses, the list of options has been expanded to provide an explanation that stakers and excavators are utilizing “ongoing coordination” for the remainder of the project rather than simply posting “not complete” as a positive response.
Who makes Consumers Energy locates? – Consumers Energy assigns all staking requests for our gas and electric distribution systems to a staking contractor. Staking requests for our gas transmission system are assigned to Consumers Energy employees. Internal resources are used for our transmission system because monitoring of the excavation site is required for many of the staking requests near our pipelines.
Making the staking process more efficient – Most of the modifications to the staking process over the past several years have been related to computer systems. Staking requests are now transmitted to the field employees’ electronic field devices rather than relying on hard copy. Facility maps now are available electronically. The documentation of completed staking is transmitted and stored in our work management system to allow ready access and for monitoring performance on staking timeliness.
Various performance measures have been developed and audit processes put in place to monitor timeliness and accuracy. Another audit point is to assure that good communication has taken place with excavators when there are delays in completing the required staking.
What can be done to make one-call better? – The MISS DIG system has made many improvements over the past couple of years to ease the process to initiate tickets on line and to provide easy access for checking status of tickets on mobile devices. QA has been increased on completed tickets to assure the staking requests are compliant with the MISS DIG standards.
One of the ongoing problems is with documentation of staking activities for large construction projects. Most One-Call systems limit the scope of the excavation that can be included on a single ticket. Typically, only one street can be included on a single ticket, length of ticket cannot exceed one mile, a separate ticket is required when crossing a governmental boundary and so forth. These requirements can often lead to numerous tickets for a single, large road project, a sewer project within a subdivision or other large scale projects. When the staker arrives at the project site and completes the staking, there are several tickets that must be accessed to document the completion of the staking and post any pictures and comments. A single ticket or an “umbrella” ticket for the entire project would ease this process and allow for easier research of staking activities on these projects when needed.
It also would be helpful if stakers and excavators had the ability to document real time communications on line so that the information is accessible to all parties involved in the project. This information might include sketches of required staking, pictures of completed staking and verbal agreements for the current day’s staking requirements. Currently the available information on the staking request is dig start date, location and whether the staking is complete. The information required on large projects is more complex.
Importance of education
Texas811 and Consumers Energy believe education – for stakeholders and the general public – is critical in protecting underground infrastructure. Both organizations take a progressive approach described in the sidebar.
Educating The General Public
Discussion about improving One-Call to better protect buried infrastructure usually centers on fine-tuning One-Call legislation, streamlining One-Call procedures and training for personnel who make and stake locates – all worthy topics for consideration.
Sometimes overlooked is the importance of educating the general public as well as stakeholders in the importance of “calling before you dig.” Consumers Energy, a large utility serving most of Michigan, and Texas811, that state’s One-Call agency, use multiple methods to effectively increase awareness.
Consumers Energy
Consumers Energy’s Dirk. R. Dunham, director of gas programs, said that Consumers Energy makes a significant effort to promote “Call Before You Dig” and other safe digging messages.
“Public service announcements and other communication tools are used to target areas identified through analysis of our damage data. A significant improvement to our damage prevention program occurred during the last couple of years with the creation of our Public Safety Outreach Team. This seven-member team has assigned territories and is dedicated to working closely with excavators throughout the construction season. They review all damage reports, follow up with damaging parties, perform staking audits and attend local Damage Prevention Association meetings to raise awareness of any gaps in our damage prevention efforts. A large percentage of their time is committed to providing training sessions for excavators on safe digging practices.
“Consumers Energy collaborates with MISS DIG and other gas companies and pipelines operating in Michigan to provide the Excavator Education Program (EEP). MISS DIG maintains a mailing list of over 70,000 excavators in the state. A gas pipeline safety brochure is sent each year to educate the excavators on MISS DIG requirements and other safe digging practices.
“In addition to the EEP, there is a collaborative effort between Consumers Energy, MISS DIG and other major utilities in Michigan to promote safe digging messages. An annual ‘April is Safe Digging Month’ event is held each year to promote 811 and other damage prevention messages. The group’s 811 public awareness campaign in 2014 was centered on promotional displays at Comerica Park during Detroit Tiger ballgames. There was also a truck giveaway contest to promote 811. A Ford F-150 was presented to the contest winner as part of our August 11 (8/11) event.
“The same public awareness group also worked together to create and distribute a cross bore awareness brochure to increase awareness of the potential hazard of sewer crossbores.”
Texas 811
Texas811 Director of Operations Chris Stovall emphasizes the importance of sharing the damage prevention message.
“Damage prevention is a shared responsibility, and it is important that everyone work together to support safety and prevention. If people are not informed, then they will not call in to process a locate request which could be dangerous to all parties involved.
“Our damage prevention teams hold meetings all over the state of Texas on a weekly basis. Their key responsibility is to spread the message and answer any questions that may arise. We team up several times throughout the year with different utility companies and host Safety Day events with the 811 message. We hold an annual Damage Prevention Summit that’s a three-day event attended by around 500 people. We pass out ‘swag’ with the Texas811 logo and distribute literature that explains the process. We also do live demos so customers and members can see how easy it is to submit a locate request.
“Texas811 communicates through multiple social media sites which are updated frequently with a message or event about damage prevention and the 811 process. We place articles in national magazines and on national websites.
“We interact with our community by being present on local affiliate public affairs television programs; we had two Lionel train cabooses with our logos in English and Spanish rolling on the tracks at a holiday model train event that attracts over 80,000 visitors; we sponsor charity golf tournaments; we’ve begun partnering with Roto-Rooter Plumbing and Drain Service – a leader in that business – to spread the damage prevention word and help protect the plumbing industry against crossbore accidents.
“We have won the CGA President’s Award, we’ve been listed as one of the best places to work in the Dallas-Fort Worth area for the third year in a row by The Dallas Morning News, our food wagon just won three trophies at a chili cook off and we worked with the state of Texas to provide specialty 811 license plates for cars.
“And the list goes on. We are really proud of our Hispanic Initiative, with nearly 50 bilingual agents on staff, printed materials in Spanish, a Spanish section on our website, a Spanish chat room on our website and ramping up our Spanish Facebook and Twitter presence. I would say without a doubt that Texas811 does not take a back seat to any organization in getting the “call before you dig” message out to the public.
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