Implementation of the New Act

The Ministry of Consumer Services initiated a consultation process for the implementation of the Ontario Underground Infrastructure Notification System Act (commonly known as the 1 Call Act).  As most already know, the Ontario Legislature passed this act into force last June, in order to make membership in ON1Call mandatory for all utilities and making it illegal for excavators to initiate work without contacting ON1Call.  Our article on the passing of this can be found by clicking here.  The consultation they are now undertaking is to develop policies for the implementation of the Act in terms of policy and regulatory development as well as oversight of ON1Call performance.

Among a number of proposal that have been mades, we found a few that were particularly interesting:

1. It is proposed that fines up to $10,000 be available in the regulations for failure of a member to provide a locate within 5 days.  This should be of particular interest to consultants and drillers as it would appear that the Act will be getting serious about having locates provided in a timely manner.  Drillers and consultants share in the current misery of waiting weeks for locates in many cases.

2. For those undertaking excavations (including drilling) without locates, fines of up to $1million will be available.

3.  A performance monitoring system is proposed, whereby a utility is required to report back to ON1Call the date and time that a locate was completed and that all damages to utilities be reported to ON1Call.

The rollout of this Act and the associated regulations and policies is an extremely important issue to environmental and geotechnical consultants and drillers.  We will continue to monitor and report back on the implementation.  Ideally, we will report in the future that locates are all being completed within 5 days and assessment and drilling investigations are staying on schedule.  That ideal world scenario is likely several years away (at least).

The Real Dirt On Pipeline Strikes

The TSSA has released an article promoting utility locates as a method of reducing utility strikes.  You can read the article by clicking The Real Dirt on Pipeline Strikes TSSA.  Although we applaud the TSSA for the proactive educational initiative, we disagree with several statements in the article.  Specifically the following phrases:

“Hire the services of a private locate company if unsure.”

“….there may be also underground residential supply lines installed by a contractor at the request or under contract with the homeowner. ………While a homeowner should be asked for locations, they may not have accurate and complete information.  If unsure of any underground line, contact a private locator….”

The inference of these statements, is that having a private locator determine the location of  onsite utilities is discretionary.  We strongly disagree and contend that the only way to safely dig is to have proper utility locates of both utility-owned, and privately owned services.  “Ask for locations” and “private locate company if unsure” are not suitable alternatives to valid, up to date, private locates.

Section 228 of Construction Regulation has been changed

In March 2010, the Ontario Sewer and Watermain Construction Association released a statement regarding changes to the Occupational Health and Safety Act related to utility locates.  You can read the notice by clicking OSWCA_Locates_Bulletin.

Section 228 of the Construction Regulation within the Occupational Health and Safety Act has been amended as follows:

Old Wording

228. (1) Before an excavation is begun,

(a) gas, electrical and other services in and near the area to be excavated shall be accurately located and marked; and

(b) if a service may pose a hazard, the service shall be shut off and disconnected. O. Reg. 213/91, s. 228 (1).

(2) The employer who is responsible for the excavation shall request the owner of the service to locate and mark the service. O. Reg. 213/91, s. 228 (2).

(3) If a service may pose a hazard and cannot be shut off or disconnected, the owner of the service shall be requested to supervise the uncovering of the service during the excavation. O. Reg. 213/91, s. 228 (3).

(4) Pipes, conduits and cables for gas, electrical and other services in an excavation shall be supported to prevent their failure or breakage. O. Reg. 213/91, s. 228 (4).

New Wording

28.  (1)  Before an excavation is begun,

(a) the employer excavating shall ensure that all gas, electrical and other services in and near the area to be excavated are located and marked;

(b) the employer and worker locating and marking the services described in clause (a) shall ensure that they are accurately located and marked; and

(c) if a service may pose a hazard, the service shall be shut off and disconnected. O. Reg. 443/09, s. 6.
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(2)  If a service may pose a hazard and it cannot be shut off or disconnected, the owner of the service shall be requested to supervise the uncovering of the service during the excavation. O. Reg. 443/09, s. 6.

(3)  Pipes, conduits and cables for gas, electrical and other services in an excavation shall be supported to prevent their failure or breakage. O. Reg. 443/09, s. 6

Although the changes appear subtle, it is our understanding that the change was made such that the regulation now requires that locates be completed “accurately”.  Apparently this was a key problem identified during the investigation of the Bloor Street Explosion, as the contractor fulfilled their requirements by “requesting locates” and the utility fulfilled their obligation by “completing locates”.  The key problem was reportedly that the locates were not undertaken correctly or accurately.

We believe that this change in the regulation places more emphasis on the potential liability of environmental consultants and geotechnical engineers to ensure that they have completed the locates properly prior to requesting us to drill a borehole at their specified location.

CGA Wants 811 in Canada

The Canadian Press is reporting that the Common Ground Alliance is pushing Ottawa to move towards the 811 system used in the US.  The article can be read by clicking here.

Kodiak Drilling very much supports the push to having a true 1 Call system, rather than the current 1 Call system, which is usually quite a number of calls.

Locate Problem – Explosion – Death

“Around 2:50 p.m. on June 7, the C&H drill team struck Enterprise’s pipeline, causing a 100-foot rupture. C&H auger truck operator James Neese was killed at the scene and eight others on the team were injured.”

“……veteran operations specialist for Enterprise failed to locate and properly mark the pipeline…..”
read how the locate problem killed the driller by clicking here

Locate Newsletter

We have received some very positive feedback on our recent newsletter.  The July issue was devoted to utility locate issues and generated some positive feedback.  We have enclosed below, excerpts from some of the emails we received.

Thanks for including me on your mailing list. Your newsletter is very informative. It contains some very interesting articles as well as useful information.

….you’ve done a great job on preparing this newsletter. I believe all consultants and their clients should read this through carefully. Informative and helpful.

Thanks for this newsletter. Good reminder on the importance of locates. Cannot be emphasized enough.

….Good article! Informative! If this is the norm, then we should all comply.

Thanks for this newsletter. Good reminder on the importance of locates. Cannot be emphasized enough.

I did receive your newsletter. Very impressive.

Feature Article

One of the problems we often encounter, is misunderstandings related to having ON1Call locates completed for indoor drilling projects.  We are facing challenges with locate requirements due to the approach of ON1Call to locate requests that involve drilling inside buildings.  The feedback we are getting is that ON1Call is refusing to provide the requisite locates when a request is made that indicates that drilling will be undertaken indoors.  We can partly understand the response, as ON1Call needs to make it known to callers that they do not locate privately owned services, which are the predominant utilities normally found indoors.  However, we don’t believe that this is fulfilling the regulatory requirements of ON1Call utility members to mark the locations of their infrastructure.  Although we are aware that it is rare for member utilities  to have infrastructure under buildings, it does occur in some locations.  We are not aware of any exemptions within the applicable Acts (and associated Regulations) which specifically exempts one from obtaining locates when the drilling is being undertaken within a building.  Discussions with TSSA personnel have suggested that TSSA also interprets the regulations this way.

The problems noted above are leading to very frustrating and costly experiences for Kodiak, our consultant customers, and their property owner clients.  We are arriving at sites, prepared to drill, but having to refuse to do the work because the locates are incomplete (i.e., they do not have ON1Call locates).  When we are told that ON1Call refuses to do the locates, we are all in a state of paralysis, as we can’t drill without proper locates and consultants can’t obtain them from ON1Call.  We are aware that some customers, who are familiar with the issue,  are getting around this problem by requesting ON1Call to locate the entire site.

Because of the above noted problems, Kodiak has brought the issue to the attention of Ontario ON1Call.  Kodiak concerns were then presented to the Board of Directors of ON1Call, which includes representation from TSSA regulated utility companies.  Based on our submission, ON1Call has completed a re-education project of their staff to advise staff that they DO ACCEPT locates for areas on the inside of buildings.  Therefore, when calling in for locates, consultants should be able to indicate that their boreholes are inside and still obtain proper locates for their project.  ON1Call has asked that if there are any problems with these requests, people should call the Help Desk at 1-866-466-7613 or email solutions@accu-link.ca.  We commend ON1Call staff for moving quickly to address this issue and hope that the implementation is as smooth as possible.

48 hours in jail for not calling 1-Call…..We need a law like this in Ontario !

From Bristol Tennessee, we get this news report – Fencing Company admits to Failure to Call Before Digging.

Most of the downtown was shut down after a gas leak. A fencing company official said his company was supposed to call the one-call center for a locate request prior to digging fence post behind a local shop. Instead, a company employee called 30 minutes after one of their augers ruptured the gas line. The company spokesman said there should have been checks and balances in place, but there were not. The fencing company was completing the last steps of a renovation at the shop that began last year. To get it done quickly, the auger crew began drilling even though the ground had not been marked. Gas line owner Atmos Energy spent nearly three hours patching the leak. About 10 downtown businesses were evacuated and streets were closed and traffic re-routed. In Tennessee, failure to call before digging is a Class B misdemeanor punishable by up to 48 hours in jail, a $2,500 fine or both. Atmos Energy would estimate the cost for the amount of gas lost and for the repairs.

Read the news report by clicking news report

Ontario 1-Call has recently (Spring 2010) updated their list of contacts for their member utilities.  You can get to that list by clicking member utilities.

We have some locate contacts on our website as well, that you can get to by clicking locate contacts.

We also have a printable pdf version that you can get by clicking on Printable Version.

Frontier Utility Locating Services has a good system on their website for finding the phone numbers for locate contacts.  You can select the municipality and see the phone numbers for contacts.  You can get directly to that system by clicking Frontier.

New Trial Ordered

The legal saga surrounding the Bloor Street explosion continues, as a retrial was granted on April 14, 2010.  Anyone who has any involvement with borehole drilling and utility locates is encouraged to familiarize themselves with the Bloor Street explosion.  We have previously posted a number of articles related to the explosion in the “Resources” section of the website.

Based on media reports, it appears that the Ontario Superior Court of Justice has overturned the directed verdict and is ordering a new trial for Enbridge and their locate subcontractor.  The company doing the excavation work without complete locates (Warren Bitulithic Limited) plead guilty in 2006 and was fined over $275,000.

In addition to the news items in our Resources section, some of the stories about the explosion and media reports on the appeal can be found below:

A good description of the incident and the recent appeal ruling, can be found in the April 21 summary provided by John Goudy:
http://landownerlaw.blogspot.com/2010/04/enbridge-bloor-street-gas-explosion.html

For some photos of the site
http://www.dvdbeaver.com/gary/blastweb/blast.html

Toronto Star story on re-trial being ordered (April 16, 2010)
http://www.thestar.com/news/gta/article/796843–enbridge-subcontractor-face-re-trial-in-fatal-blast

Etobicoke Guardian stories on redevelopment, the appeal, and the names of the victims
http://www.mosun.com/news/MA-19032008.pdf

Story on the redevelopment of the site and the memorial garden honouring the 7 people who lost their lives because the locates weren’t complete.
http://www.insidetoronto.com/news/centre/article/55689

Whenever someone wants us to drill without complete locates, we would like them to read the press stories related to the incident, and to think about the seven people killed in the explosion, knowing that the reason for the explosion was that the locates were not complete.