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Meeting - August 30, 2005...
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Minutes:
CALL TO ORDER:
The legislative meeting hosted by the Utility Notification Center of Colorado was held on the 30th day of August 2005, at the Holiday Inn at 4859 Bannock St, Denver, Colorado. J.D. Maniscalco, Executive Director of UNCC called the meeting to order at 9:10 a.m.
J.D. noted that the meeting was being held to facilitate discussion regarding modifications to the one-call law that protects infrastructure in Colorado. He emphasized that UNCC would maintain a neutral position and would not lead any legislative efforts. The meeting would be broken into groups based on areas of interest including exemptions, hand digging and pre-marking, enforcement and membership. J.D. asked that each group take notes to report on their discussion at the conclusion of the meeting. He noted that the goal of the discussions should be to improve the processes now in place.
J.D. reviewed some previous legislative initiatives from the past few years. Xcel, Qwest and Comcast had proposed legislation during the last year to allow some excavation exceptions. Colorado Counties have proposed legislation regarding county road and ditch maintenance. The green industry has proposed legislation regarding exceptions for routine landscaping maintenance issues.
J.D. introduced the UNCC Board members and staff present and then each person present introduced themselves and their companies to the group. J.D. reviewed the guidelines to be used for building consensus within groups.
GROUP REPORTS:
Exemptions: John “Chip” Taylor (CCI)
This group agreed that having a one-call system is good but the system currently in place does not work well and needs to be modified. Their discussion centered on grading and ditch clearing. The issues discussed were the size of area that might need to be located in a day for road and ditch maintenance and proper facility installation primarily relating to depth. It was recognized that operators may have difficulty getting lines to a proper depth and that depth of facilities change over time. Because of these factors, this group did not favor putting bury depth requirements in the law. They would like to see more detailed definitions regarding excavation, especially for routine road maintenance, in the law. They were unable to make recommendations for solving the issues but were able to identify what the issues were from both sides.
Exemptions: R.J. Hicks (Hicks & Associates)
This group also discussed county grading issues. They were not in favor of exemptions for certain activities or felt that if exemptions were granted they would need to be very specific. They felt that the language in HB-1073 from last year was a good start. They noted that UNCC damage data shows trends regarding damages and would like to see additional data collected regarding whether exemptions would have a negative impact on damages. They recognized that many maintenance activities are currently being performed without locates now. They felt if locates for these maintenance activities were added to the system the volume could create safety issues for more necessary locates.
Hand Digging and Pre-Marking: David Fiore (Fiore & Sons, Inc.)
This group discussed the process of hand digging versus mechanized excavation. They noted that safety issues exist for laborers who are hand digging especially beyond a few feet. Solutions discussed were to develop a specific process to allow excavators to use a ticket issued to them for third party excavators i.e. a vacuum excavator. UNCC might be able to facilitate this by placing the information on the ticket regarding what other third parties could use the ticket. They noted that uniform adoption of the CGA Best Practices for marking could alleviate the necessity of some hand digging. Improvements in locator accuracy would also improve the system. They did not feel that pre-marking would ensure accuracy but felt that accountability for marking accuracy might improve the system. They were in favor of design locates and felt that many damages could be eliminated or reduced with the additional information that comes from design locates. This group was generally in favor of pre-marking and hand digging and considering vacuum excavation as non mechanized excavation.
Enforcement: Bill Stephens (Kinder Morgan)
There is currently no clear cut agency that is doing enforcement. Enforcement must go through the court system and creates a no win situation. This group had discussion about streamlining the one- call system by including all utility owners as Tier I members. They plan to gather information from other states with arbitration systems in place to find out more details regarding representation, funding and other issues. They felt that a committee system with all areas of the industry represented would be an effective and equitable way of administering issues when a problem occurs. This type of system would allow for enforcement and voicing of concerns.
Membership: Richard Horstmann (CDOT)
This group wanted to be sure that everyone had the basic understanding that all facility owners must be a member of UNCC either via Tier I or Tier II membership or as an exemption. They explored membership and cost responsibility issues including levels of membership, damage prevention, the cost of Tier II membership to other members, shifting the burden of costs to the excavators, increasing the costs to Tier II members, and an excavator membership fee. This group felt that it would be preferable to reach a solution that is not legislative based. Everyone agreed that protecting workers in the field, preventing damages and sharing the costs of the one-call process as a whole industry was important.
Membership: Rex Kohart (Comcast)
This group focused on the quality of the industry and did not focus on cost. They determined that the current membership structure holds a certain amount of inefficiency and confusion for the excavators. They examined the structure of the current system of Tier I and Tier II membership and felt that the size of the facility owner might be a better determining factor for membership qualification. The excavator issues with the current system center around the inefficiencies of making multiple calls to Tier II members. Tier II members want to maintain contact with the excavator and this issue should be resolved. Technology issues were also discussed. This group concluded that a true “one-call” system would be more efficient and would benefit the industry.
CONCLUSION and NEXT MEETING:
J.D. thanked the groups for their participation. He asked that individual groups continue to meet to make progress on these issues and then come back together for another meeting on September 30, 2005. J.D. asked that any other interested parties be invited to future discussions and noted that he would attempt to involve industry regulatory agencies in the next meeting.
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