May 2021 has been…interesting so far. Normally, we would be running in the red to control the substantially increased volumes we receive (as I’ve noted in earlier articles), however this year things feel…different.

This of course isn’t to say it is not busy; far from it. What it isn’t however, is unmanageable.

As Jeff told CFL.ca in the April 2021 article "O’Leary: The story behind the keeper of the cup’s children’s book" his dad, Glenn “Keeper” McWhinney was a quarterback-halfback with the 1954 Grey Cup-winning Edmonton team and a member of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

You probably recall a time when calendars, promoting products and safety, circulated prior to the beginning of every year. Prior to the proliferation of mobile devices, calendar apps and electronic reminders, calendars offered an excellent medium of promoting products and messaging and for years, Alberta One-Call circulated tens of thousands of calendars to safety partners every year. For a long time, Dave Whamond’s artwork was the centrepiece of those calendars offering a humourous, yet lasting and thought-provoking view to our damage prevention messaging.

With $100 million in funding from provincial and federal governments to clean up inactive wells in Indigenous communities in Alberta, there’s more than enough work to go around.

To help First Nations participate in and benefit from this funding — which was announced in early 2021 — TC Energy is supporting the Inactive Wellsite Abandonment and Reclamation Training to Employment program. This initiative is a partnership with the Indian Resource Council, Alberta Common Ground Alliance (ABCGA — now administered by Alberta One-Call Corporation), Blood Reserve Kainaiwa Resources Inc., Global and Kettle River. It will help First Nations members from Alberta obtain industry training for work placement opportunities.

You probably heard about the recent bizarre and uniquely Canadian situation where a beaver chewed through a crucial fibre cable causing "extensive" damage. The busy Canadian icon’s chomping took out internet service for about 900 customers in Tumbler Ridge, B.C. and photos from the site appeared to show the beavers using Telus materials to build their home. Telus fully restored service by 3:30 p.m.

The Great Beaver Caper sparked some online conversations at AOC and when you process over 400,000 locate requests every year, you’re bound to have a few gems in the mix. Here are a few locate requests that have stood out over the years.

Promoting safety has never been easy. We take so much for granted and significant changes often take years, even generations, to have a positive impact. Consider seatbelt safety. If you’re 40 or older, chances are you sat on your mother’s lap as an infant when traveling in the family car. And as you got older, you were relegated to the backseat with your siblings. Today, thankfully, that’s no longer the case. I can remember my own son making quite a fuss as I started backing out of the driveway — my wife and I had forgotten to buckle him into his car seat. At that very early age, habit had taken hold and he was uncomfortable not being secured while the car was moving.

The seatbelt campaign was successful — it just took years to reach its goal and was limited by the mediums available; namely, television, radio and print, but, it was also supported by legislation.

Appropriate training is critical for any worker, regardless of role or industry. The Ground Disturbance 101 Standard will fill a gap and provide the training that a ground disturbance worker needs.

The Ground Disturbance 101 Standard is currently in its final stage of development: the validation process. The TSC validates training standards to ensure that programs can achieve the desired knowledge transfer and be successfully audited. This is important to confirm that content can be delivered in anticipated timeframes. Both an instructor-led training program and an online training program will undergo this process.

When a locate technician arrives on your property, they will locate and mark the buried utilities relative to your proposed excavation project with paint, stakes or flags. Those markings will be in accordance with the universal colour code and should be in sufficient quantity, and close enough together, to clearly identify the horizontal alignment of the buried facilities.

While locating equipment is quite sophisticated and accurate, parallel facilities, overhead facilities and nearby reinforced concrete structures can interfere with the equipment’s technology and affect accuracy.