Bloor Street Explosion – 10 Years Ago Today (April 24)

Dora Carambelas, Tina Kirkimtzis, Robert Fairley, Irene Miyama, Adele Brown, Elizabeth Roy, and Lillian Guglietti; those are the names of the seven people who lost their lives 10 years ago today as a result of utility locate issues.  Today marks the anniversary of the Bloor Street Explosion.  In summary, a problem related to obtaining appropriate locates was the cause of a tremendous explosion at a strip plaza on Bloor Street in the Six Points area of Etobicoke on April 24, 2003.  The incident caused the complete destruction of the plaza and the loss of life for seven people in the plaza.  As a result of the incident, investigations and court proceedings led to the eventual conviction of the excavation company, the utility locator, and Enbridge with penalties of $1.4 million in total.  There are a number of articles in our blog related to this incident and more information in the Locate Resources section of our website.

Interestingly, one of the guilty pleas was for “failing to adequately supervise an employee in the implementation of the locate process”.  This plea should be of interest to environmental and geotechnical consulting firms.  It could have implications for firms ensuring their employees are properly trained with respect to utility locates when they are managing site investigations with drillers.

Five years after the explosion, a memorial garden and plaque were unveiled at the residential/commercial building that was constructed to replace the destroyed plaza.

Over the last 10 years since the explosion that levelled the plaza and killed seven people, there has been increased awareness of utility locate issues, modification to the Occupational Health and Safety Act to improve wording in the construction regulation, and just last year an entirely new Act (Ontario Underground Infrastructure Notification System Act), and we still have people requesting us to drill when they do not have complete locates.

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).

$500 Fee For No Locates

In addition to the fines available to regulators within a number of acts and regulations for not having locates, the TSSA has introduced a $500 fee within their Natural Gas Fee Schedule for an inspection at sites where there are no locates.  They have also increased their Pipeline Strike Inspection fee to $850 for sites where there is an incident.  Their fee schedule can found by clicking Fees.Date:  April 2013

Big News on 1-Call

After many years and a lot of work by quite a number of people, Ontario now officially has a true 1-Call system.  On June 19, Bill 8, the Ontario Underground Infrastructure Notification System Act received Royal Assent.  Essentially, this Act creates a legal framework whereby all underground utilities must be members of Ontario 1-Call and employ their systems as a mechanism to provide utility locates.  Although many utilities are members already, many are not; thereby creating confusion and extra work for stakeholders who are seeking to determine the location of utilities prior to undertaking an excavation, such as borehole drilling.  This act will require all municipalities, gas pipeline and electrical infrastructure operators and any other owners of utilities that cross public rights of way to be members of 1-Call.  There is a one to two year phase-in period for non members to join 1-Call.  In addition, the act sets out responsibilities for those undertaking excavation work to have locates completed before they initiating the work.

A few key areas of the Act are highlighted below:

This sets out a 5 day timeline for locates, but leaves an out clause by indicating “reasonable attempts”.  It will be interesting to see how the phrase “reasonable attempts” is interpreted when one does not obtain their locates when they need them.

As outlined above, not only is a person now obligated by law to contact 1-Call, but also to ensure there is a locate for each utility and ensure that the paint marks or flags do not conflict with the paperwork (a common problem).There are also provisions for the establishment of regulations under the Act for such items as timelines, fines, membership, among others.  This Act further supports our company policies of not drilling without proper and complete locates, as it implements another regulatory regime for the requirement for locates.  This is in addition to the current requirements set out in the Occupational Health and Safety Act, the TSSA Act, and the Electricity Act.

This Act does not affect private utilities belonging to the property owners, and in no way changes the requirements to have them located by a private locator prior to initiating a drilling program.

Links to some further information: 

Press Release – MPP Bob Bailey – 12-06-19 – Bill 8 Royal Assent

Daily Commercial News Article

A link to the Act along with background information

No Locates = Fine

A TSSA press release advises of a recent fine imposed on an Ontario contractor for not obtaining proper locates.  The contractor reportedly struck the gas pipeline with a backhoe than crimped it with vice grips.  You can read the press release by clicking Press Release.  A couple of quotes from the information caught our eye:

“It was sheer luck that no one was injured in this incident”

“…..TSSA will aggressively prosecute contractors who don’t follow the regulations requiring them to obtain locates and endangering public safety…”

You “Should” be Okay ?

This is a quote from a recent locate:

Upon review of the work area specified on this locate request, we have determined there “should” be no conflict with TELUS facilities.  We will not be marking TELUS lines at this time.  Although we have cleared this thicket we ask that you dig with caution.

The locate actually has the word “Should” in quotation marks.  Does this make you confident that the drilling area is clear of Telus?

Locates Cartoon

If you read Drill Bits magazine or saw our previous article about Chuck Rench and Kelly Barr, you are familiar with the characters presented by the National Drilling Association (NDA) promoting safe drilling practices.  Based on our suggestion, the NDA used Chuck and Kelly to promote the utility locate the message.  This cartoon was published in the Fall 2011 edition of the magazine.

Charged and Convicted

From the legal files, we have a recent conviction and some new charges:

Convicted

October 2011 – An Employer and supervisor pleaded guilty to a charge under section 228(1)(a) of Ontario Regulation 213/91 resulting in fines of $20,000 and $2,500 respectively.  This was the result of an incident investigation from April 2010 where workers hit a 1 ¼” natural gas line while excavating at a residence in St. Catharines.  It was determined that locates were not performed prior to beginning the excavation.

May 2011 – Two employers on the same project plead guilty to charges under section 228(1)(a) of Ontario Regulation 213/91 and received fines of $6500 and $20,000.  This was the result of an incident investigation from August of 2008 where a gas line was cut during and excavation for an electrical duct at an institutional project in Milton.

Charged

October 2011 – A worker was issued a summons – issued under section 228(1)(b) of O. Reg. 213/91 (a section related to utility locates).  We will stay tuned to see if this worker is convicted.

Follow up

A follow up to our article regarding private locates and the explosion that killed one person near Owen Sound – In reviewing Ministry of Labour Court Bulletins, we came across the guilty plea of the construction company with a an imposed fine of $225,000.  The press release can be found by clicking press release.  As a reminder, this incident involved a house where private locates had not been completed.  More information can be found in our Feature Article on private locates at houses in the utility locate section of our articles.

Ministry of Labour Court Bulletins can be found by clicking Court Bulletins.

Information courtesy Ontario Ministry of Labour

TSSA Guidelines for Excavations

The TSSA document “Guidelines For Excavations In The Vicinity of Gas Lines” November 2004 has recently been updated.  For the update, TSSA worked with the Electrical Safety Authority (ESA) to produce a new document to harmonize the requirements with the electrical utility requirements.  The new document  “Guidelines For Excavations In The Vicinity of Utility Lines” is available from the TSSA by clicking here. 

The document is relatively short and easy to read.  We would strongly encourage all project managers and field technicians who are contracting drillers, undertaking construction excavations, or overseeing remediation excavations to review this information.

Specific attention should be given to Section 2.0:

Prior to excavation the person responsible for the work shall contact “Ontario One Call” at the telephone or facsimile numbers listed in Table 1 below, or the utility, and request a locate of utility lines in the areas where excavation will be taking place. The Excavator must receive the locate as described in Section 3.0 prior to commencing any excavation.

Consultants should be aware that the phrase “…. person responsible for the work…..” clearly identifies them as the responsible party should there be any problem with incomplete locates.  We always find it surprising that consultants show us the locates and then ask “are these okay with you?”, as if we are some sort of an approval authority.  If a consultant is taking on the responsibility for the excavation, shouldn’t they satisfy themselves that they know what it means to have proper and complete locates and govern their actions accordingly?

Over $1 million Fines

In a previous post, we indicated that a new trial had been ordered for Enbridge in the Bloor Street explosion.  For those who have forgotten, this was an explosion that leveled a building and killed 7 people because the utility locates were not completed properly.  We have posted below, information from that release as well as a link to the full press release.  As outlined, the fines related to this incident now total over $1 million.  We have heard rumors that a full inquiry may be the next step in this saga.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (Toronto, ON, December 16, 2011) – Enbridge Gas Distribution Inc. pled guilty to a charge under the Technical Standards and Safety Act, 2000 (the Act) for its role in a natural gas explosion on April 24, 2003 at 3887 Bloor St. West in Toronto that killed seven people, seriously injured four others, destroyed a two-story commercial and residential building, and caused extensive damage to adjacent properties.

The Ontario Provincial Offences Court imposed a fine of $350,000 plus a 25% victim surcharge of $87,500 for a total fine of $437,500 against Enbridge for failing to provide as accurate information as possible regarding the location of underground natural gas pipelines as required under the Act.

To read the full news release, please click here