The Damage Prevention Legislation Paradox

Mike Sullivan – President – Utility Safety Partners

I’m waiting for the mail to arrive and expecting a letter from the UCP government with their latest feedback on Utility Safety Partners’ (USP) quest for comprehensive damage prevention legislation. If you’ve been following the story for the last few years, you’ll know why it’s being pursued and the general gist of it. But if you don’t know, the objective is fairly straightforward.

USP is seeking legislation that will require all buried and overhead utilities operating within a public right of way to register their location with USP; and, that every ground disturbance shall be required to submit a locate request to USP prior to start.

Despite not having such legislation in place, Alberta has been and remains an internationally recognized damage prevention trailblazer. I can’t help wondering if that would be the case if legislation been secured long ago.

Such is the conundrum of legislation and regulations — they can be quickly outpaced and outdated by advancements in technology, process, and practice — and opening existing laws and regulations for reform isn’t easily done. I think about this a lot because as we change the way we live and work, some laws, or elements of law, may become obsolete. Or new situations may arise that no existing law deals with. For example, old laws against theft didn’t foresee identity theft or online harassment. The same technology that enables one person to find information about another also makes it possible to steal information that was meant to be private.

So how do we introduce damage prevention legislation without risking the advancement for which Alberta is so widely known? Can legislation and Utility Safety Partners as we know it coexist?

Yes, they can. 

The key to securing the desired path forward is for USP to maintain governance and operations under the existing board of directors. At its core, the legislation pursued is to simply mandate registration of buried and overhead energy and utility assets with USP and require any person conducting a ground disturbance to initiate the damage prevention process by submitting a locate request prior to excavation. That’s it. No more and no less.

We don’t need to overthink this.