Page 18 - Louisiana 811 Magazine 2022 Issue 3

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 14
excluding weekends and holidays, to the commission.
Solution Reference – New Hampshire Code of Administrative Rules, Chapter PUC 800 - Underground Utility Damage Prevention Program, parts 802, 804 & 805.
Balanced Enforcement
Tactical / Process Issue Addressed – Tactical: Fair and balanced enforcement with responsible parties to achieve accountability based on their individual role or contribution to any particular damage.
Recommendation – Balanced Enforcement: Cause enforcement authority to weigh involvement of all primary participants in the damage and hold the asset owner, excavator, and locator responsible in the damage adjudication process in a fair and balanced fashion.
Solution Summary – Where...the facility owner...has misidentified, mislocated or failed to identify
its facilities pursuant to this act,
then in computing the amount of reimbursement to which the facility owner is entitled, the cost of repairing or replacing its facilities shall be diminished in the same proportion
that the facility owner’s or designer’s misidentification, mis-location or failure to identify the facilities contributed to the damage.
Solution Reference – See Pennsylvania Law - Underground Utility Line Protection Law - 806, No. 50, Section 5, §12.i and 12.ii, SB242.
Third-Party Enforcement Board
Tactical / Process Issue Addressed
– Tactical: Ineffective or lack of enforcement. Cause a behavior
change in responsible parties to support effective damage prevention. Structure system to support continuous improvement efforts through the collection of data to identify trends, conduct root cause analysis, and ultimately support building a culture that embraces damage prevention.
Recommendation – Third-Party Enforcement Board: Develop or enhance 3rd party investigation and enforcement board, with a balanced number of representatives from each stakeholder group, imbued with both responsibility and authority to manage the entire damage adjudication process.
Solution Summary – The principal 16 • Louisiana 811 2022, Issue 3
purpose of the Idaho Damage Prevention Board...is to reduce
damages to underground facilities and to promote safe excavation practices through education directed toward excavators, underground facility owners, and the public at large. The board
also shall review complaints of alleged violations. It shall be the responsibility and duty of the administrator to administer the requirements of the law, and the administrator shall exercise such powers and duties as are reasonably necessary to enforce the provisions of the law.
Solution Reference – State of Idaho Title 55 - Property in General, Chapter 22 - Underground Facilities Damage Prevention, Parts 2201 & 2203. (see also Tennessee Code Title 65, Chapter 31, Part 114, 115, 116 & 117) (see also North Carolina Code §87.129).
Effective Metrics
Tactical / Process Issue Addressed – Tactical: Lack of consistent and critical data for the development of continuous improvement efforts designed to change future behaviors and build a culture that embraces damage prevention.
Recommendation – Effective Metrics: Identify, develop, collect, and track metrics that effectively support trending and continuous improvement of the state damage prevention performance.
Solution Summary – The most widely recognized metric is total number of damages per 1000 tickets. This should be further refined to - total number of damages per 1000 transmissions, or outgoing tickets. It should be noted that there are several factors in the locate notification process that vary from state to state that make this metric unpredictable. National standardization of the notification process would potentially transform the industry through the direct result of stable data (see Standardize Ticket Size, Distance, Duration, and Life Recommendation). States that choose not to standardize would require substantial additional analysis in order to develop normalized metrics to support state-to-state and year-to-year analysis. Additional metrics include, but are not limited to:
• # of damages per construction spend or more specifically utility construction spend (normalization)
• # of damages per customer served (normalization)
• # of damages per state population (normalization)
• the trending of damages against GDP
growth
• the trending of damages against urban density or state average density
Solution Reference – North Carolina approach to data requirements, tracking, and analysis.
Annual Reporting to CGA and DIRT
Tactical / Process Issue Addressed – Tactical: Lack of formal requirement to consistently report state performance data to Common Ground Alliance. Structure a system to support continuous improvement efforts through collection of data to identify trends, conduct root cause analysis, and ultimately support building a culture that embraces damage prevention.
Recommendation – Annual Reporting to CGA and DIRT: Require state entity(s) responsible for the oversight of the 811 system and collection and adjudication of compliance or damage reports, ticket volumes, etc. to submit data to the Common Ground Alliance (CGA) in support of the annual DIRT report.
Solution Summary – The Common Ground Alliance (CGA) is established and nationally recognized as the industry standard for continuous improvement and industry best practices specific to damage prevention. CGA’s focus is solely on damage prevention and the update
or development of best management practices along with the publication of the annual DIRT report highlighting state by state damage prevention performance.
Solution Reference – www. commongroundalliance.com
Positive Response Requirement
Tactical / Process Issue Addressed – Tactical: - Increased potential for asset damage due to excavation beginning before all potentially affected utilities have acknowledged an “all clear” or “locate complete.”
Recommendation – Positive Response Requirement: A web-based electronic positive response requirement by all asset owners/locators through the 811 system. Ticket holders can choose how to receive a positive response from this electronic system.
Solution Summary – Tennessee law states...Each operator participating in a one-call service that has been notified... shall notify the one-call service that the operator has marked the approximate location of all of its underground utilities as required...or that the