November 2023 Vol. 78 No.11
Features
CGA’s DIRT report correlates infrastructure investment with increased excavation damage
Reporting tool provides recommendations to address challenges, achieve goals
(UI) — Common Ground Alliance (CGA), the national nonprofit trade association dedicated to protecting underground utility lines, people who dig near them and their communities, recently announced the findings from its 2022 Damage Information Reporting Tool (DIRT). It revealed concerning increases across key damage indicators.
The report found that damage to underground utilities, which pose severe risks to public safety and interrupt commerce, has trended upward over the last three years. Excavation activity continues to increase, as states work to improve infrastructure, along with a significant influx of funding from the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
Three-year modeling from 2020–2022 indicates that damages per construction spending rose 12.35 percent and damages per 1,000 transmissions rose 9.34 percent between 2021 and 2022. A regression analysis of consistent 2020–2022 data, which considered additional variables including weather, population and infrastructure density further confirms that damages were at best flat and likely increasing.
The annual DIRT provides a comprehensive accounting and analysis of damages to buried infra-structure in the U.S. and Canada to help stakeholders understand the current landscape and the fac-tors contributing to underground facility damages. As excavation activity continues to increase, the report underscores the importance of addressing the ongoing causes of damage to vital facilities to drive these numbers down.
Data
The report analyzed all 2022 data submitted voluntarily to DIRT by facility operators, utility locating companies, 811 centers, contractors, regulators and others from the U.S. and Canada, and con-textualized the data as part of a three-year trend analysis (2020-2022). Reflecting excavation/construction stakeholders’ increased engagement with damage prevention, that key group was the leading source of damage reports for the first time in 2022.
The analysis of 2022 data indicates that a few persistent challenges are responsible for nearly 76 percent of damages that occur, including no notification to the 811 centers, failure to pothole and/or maintain sufficient clearance, facilities not marked or marked inaccurately due to locator error, and other improper excavation practices.
No-notification damages make up more than 25 percent of all damages, with 77 percent of these attributed to professional excavators. Focusing industry efforts and outreach on these top challenges is key to making measurable progress in reducing damage and near-miss incidents.
The report urges stakeholders to commit to working within organizations and across stakeholder groups to generate new solutions to the persistent, systemic issues causing the majority of damages. Recommendations provided to address specific root-cause groups included:
- No-Notification Root Cause: Focus excavator outreach on behavioral change – namely consistent and effective use of 811 – and help restore excavator confidence in the system through improved locating processes.
- Excavation Root Causes: Prioritize tolerance zone safety, address contracts to provide adequate compensation for potholing, and provide excavators with access to map visualizations.
- Locator Error Root Causes: Enhance facility maps to GIS-grade, address contract structures to emphasize timeliness and accuracy, and increase efficiency through effective use of the 811 system.
Recommendations
The report also provides recommendations to enhance reporting and analysis of damages to better understand and address trends, including the implementation of standardized data collection fields and creation of damage prevention indices to gauge progress over time. Stakeholders are also en-couraged to participate in the Damage Prevention Institute’s (DPI) accreditation and peer review processes to help develop the next generation of industry performance metrics.
SIDENOTE STORY: CGA’s GIS case study highlighting value in facility mapping information
“Earlier this year, we challenged the industry with the ambitious goal of reducing damages by 50 percent over the next five years,” said CGA President and CEO Sarah Magruder Lyle. “The findings of the DIRT Report are critical to focusing the industry on key areas contributing to more than three-quarters of all damages to buried infrastructure.
“To make significant change and reverse damage rates, it’s critical that our industry rapidly adopts the recommendations outlined in this report to target the most persistent challenges.”
To illustrate that the “50-in-5” challenge is achievable, the 2022 DIRT includes a case study from 811 Chicago, which did reduce underground utility damages in the city by 50 percent over five years through collaboration and mapping efforts. The case study serves as a resource for other organizations to improve their processes and focus their investments on proven strategies that reduce damages, so they can contribute to the 50-in-5 industry challenge.
“We’d like to thank the dedicated damage prevention organizations that make the DIRT Report possible each year through their voluntary submission of damage and near-miss data,” said Louis Panzer, executive director of North Carolina 811 and CGA Data Reporting & Evaluation Commit-tee co-chair. “The data makes it clear that we have areas we need to improve upon but offers us a great direction forward to definitively reverse these concerning damage trends.
“With the new influx of data from excavators, as well as the monthly reporting required for Dam-age Prevention Institute participants, we can look forward to unprecedented insights that will help shape the future of damage prevention and drive industry progress.”
CGA is a member-driven association of nearly 3,200 individuals, organizations and sponsors in every facet of the underground utility industry. The complete DIRT Annual Report for 2022 is available for download at dirt.common ground alliance.com, and stakeholders interested in submit-ting data to the 2023 Report or establishing a Virtual Private Dirt account should visit the DIRT website: cga-dirt.com.
FOR MORE INFORMATION:
CGA, commongroundalliance.com
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