NTSB urges more steps to protect pipelines

The National Transportation Safety Board has urged the U.S. Transportation Department's Research and Special Programs Administration (RSPA) to take stronger steps to prevent damage to buried pipelines.

NTSB noted, "A single pipeline accident has the potential to cause a catastrophic disaster that can injure hundreds of persons, affect thousands more, and cost millions of dollars in terms of property damage, loss of work opportunity, community disruption, ecological damage, and insurance liability.

"Excavation and construction activities are the largest single cause of accidents to pipelines. Data maintained by RSPA indicate that damage from outside forces is the leading cause of leaks and ruptures to pipeline systems, accounting for more than 40% of the reported failures.

"According to the data, two thirds of these failures are the result of damage caused by someone other than the pipeline operator." NTSB said excavation damage is also the single largest cause of interruptions to fiber cable service.

The safety agency said that, in response to six serious pipeline accidents in 1993-94 that were caused by excavation damage, it and RSPA sponsored a workshop in September 1994 attended by 400 representatives of pipelines, excavators, trade groups, and government agencies.

NTSB said its study analyzed the findings of the 1994 workshop and actions taken since then and formalized recommendations.

Conclusions

NTSB said full participation in excavation damage prevention programs by all excavators and underground facility owners is essential to achieve optimum effectiveness of these programs.

"Many essential elements and activities of a one-call notification center have been identified but have not been uniformly implemented."

DOT recently issued a rule that operators of onshore gas and hazardous pipelines must participate in one-call systems, effective May 18 (OGJ, Dec. 29, 1997, p. 30).

It said administrative enforcement has proven effective in some state excavation damage prevention programs.

For example, pre-marking an intended excavation site to specifically indicate the area where underground facilities need to be identified is a practice that helps prevent excavation damage, according to NTSB.

Training needed

The board also said, "Employee qualification and training is an integral component of an effective excavation damage prevention program, and industry has recognized the need for employee training but has not implemented training uniformly."

It said, at a minimum, excavators should formulate an emergency response plan appropriate for the specific construction site and ensure that employees working at that site know the correct action to take if a buried facility is damaged.

Although considerable progress has been made to improve state excavation damage prevention programs, additional efforts are needed to uniformly develop and implement programs that are most effective, NTSB said.

The study said more research and testing is needed to determine the accuracy of depth detection by remote locating equipment.

Facility maps should have a standard depiction for underground facilities that were installed using directional boring techniques, NTSB said.

It also recommended that underground facility mapping consider the amount of detail and the accuracy of information necessary for effective use.

NTSB said providing construction planners with information on the location of underground facilities, referred to as "planning locates," can reduce conflicts between construction activities and existing underground facilities.

"Facility operators are provided little guidance for estimating property damage resulting from an accident, and subjective estimates of damage below the reporting threshold may account for some accidents not being reported to RSPA when they should have been.

"One-call notification centers may be the most appropriate organizations to collect risk exposure data on frequency of digging and data on accidents."

Recommendations

As a result of the study, NTSB made these recommendations to RSPA:

• RSPA should conduct workshops on excavation damage prevention at regular intervals.
• RSPA should complete a final rule on operator employee qualification, training, and testing standards within 1 year.
• Operators should be required to test employees on the safety procedures they are expected to follow and demonstrate that they can correctly perform the work.
• RSPA should periodically conduct reviews of existing state excavation damage prevention programs and recommend changes and improvements.
• RSPA should sponsor the independent testing of pipeline locator equipment performance under a variety of field conditions and develop uniform certification criteria of locator equipment.
• RSPA should develop mapping standards for a common mapping system, with a goal to actively promote its widespread use.
• RSPA should develop and distribute to pipeline operators written guidance to improve the accuracy of information for reportable accidents, including parameters for estimating property damage resulting from an accident.
• RSPA also should revise accident report forms to eliminate overlapping and confusing categories and to clearly list excavation damage as one of the data elements and include the purpose of the excavation.
• RSPA should develop a plan for collecting excavation damage exposure data and work with the one-call systems to implement it. NTSB said the data should be used in periodic assessments of the effectiveness of state excavation damage prevention programs.

NTSB made related recommendations to the American Public Works Association, Federal Highway Administration, Association of American Railroads, American Short Line Railroad Association, American Society of Civil Engineers, and Associated General Contractors of America.

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