It wasn't long ago that transmission pipelines across Canada were essentially non-topic. Pipelines rarely, if ever, made headlines and continued to operate safely while populations grew and cities expanded encroaching pipeline rights of way.

The fall equinox marks the sun's crossing above Earth's equator, moving from north to south. This year, the equinox fell at 1:04 UTC on September 23, 2022, which was 6:04 pm September 22nd for us Mountain Standard Time folks.

As conferences, tradeshows, and workshops are coming back and filling our calendars once again, the Training Standards Committee (TSC) is getting set to make its presence known. Members of the TSC will be on the road again spreading awareness of important initiatives, including the launch of the brand-new Ground Disturbance 101 Training Standard! Let’s take a look at a couple of events we have planned for October.

Recently the CCGA released version 4.0 of one of its signature publications, The CCGA Best Practice Manual. Inside is the collective knowledge of hundreds of individuals from across Canada. The best practices found in the manual were all reached by the consensus of countless stakeholders and offer more specifics on the best way to prevent damage than Legislation, Regulation or Standards could ever do.

Ok, first a disclaimer – no it was NOT an entirely digital campaign. But this episode showcases how the digital aspects of the campaign resulted in clicks. Not theory, not estimates, not guesses… clicks!

From a high-level perspective, the 2022 advertising campaign had two main components, radio advertisements across 43 stations in Alberta (majority of them in rural locations), and digital advertisements.

Large Project Tickets are designed for pre-planned jobs which continue over a significant area and length of time. The large scope of these projects typically requires a planning meeting between excavators and affected facility owners in the area before locates are requested.

One of the common points of confusion in the damage prevention process is the locating of privately owned facilities. Many facilities on private property are owned by the property owner rather than the facility owner/utility provider. For example: water and sewer lines are operated by the facility owner only up to the demarcation point, (typically a CC valve near the property line). After that point, the water line is owned by the property owner and will therefore not be marked when a water and sewer facility locator responds to a request for locates on private property.

Did anyone get the plate number of that truck that just hit me?

Proverbially of course; while your intrepid author always ensures he looks both ways before crossing rhetorical roadways, September struck the USP Contact Centre like a Mack Truck this year.