Mike Sullivan - President, Utility Safety Partners
It wasn’t long ago that the “safety guy” was someone appointed to read up on safety information to be the on-site caretaker and play second (or third or fourth) fiddle to the site foreman. Today, safety is paramount on every jobsite, and you won’t even get a first glance if you don’t have a Certified Registered Safety Professional designation, which is a combination of education, professional development, and experience. The same can be said for environmental stewardship. Decades ago, we ploughed through the earth to make way for development without much thought given to flora and fauna. Thankfully, that’s just not the case anymore. Environmental science and stewardship is a respected discipline and affects all phases of every project.
The advances in safety and environmental stewardship are a testament to public, worker and community safety, recognizing the preservation of delicate ecosystems supporting all life.
In recent years, a new area of expertise is emerging—the damage prevention specialist. And it is a function whose time has come.
But what exactly is a damage prevention specialist?
Boiled down, their role is coordinating the multitude of ground-disturbance activities to secure the integrity of buried utilities within the vicinity of a workspace which, if damaged, could lead to service disruptions, injuries, or environmental hazards. And while there are some direct elements such as knowledge of utility locating and marking and coordinating with notification centres and the related damage prevention process, their expertise and knowledge is much more demanding than that.
The damage prevention specialist must also be knowledgeable of site inspections and audits, observing excavation sites to ensure compliance with safety regulations and best practices. They also require knowledge of public education programs and the latest methods of how to promote awareness. Sound regulatory compliance knowledge is equally paramount and requires ongoing learning to ensure all excavation activities follow damage prevention laws, regulations, and standards. Acute knowledge of best practices, and emerging best practices, is equally important.
A damage prevention specialist might also be an incident investigator—reporting and documenting utility strikes and near misses, identifying root causes, and recommending corrective actions. In that light they would also be a critical liaison with utility companies, municipalities, construction firms, and regulatory agencies when preparing a site for activity or when responding to an incident.
While we know what a damage prevention specialist is and what their functions are, how does one become a DPS?
Currently, there isn’t a recognized curriculum available to become a DPS but Utility Safety Partners and the Training Standards Committee want to change that. Preventing damage to buried energy and utility assets can be complicated and to be successful, it requires a dedicated and designated representative to coordinate all related activities.
Let’s not leave anything to chance. Let’s make it happen.