Safety First...

What are the facts about the problems associated with excavation and underground networks?  Here are just a few:

• In 1998, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board added excavation damage prevention to its list of most wanted safety improvements. KeiBerg Inc. believes that LINE ALERT is the first product that fully meets this mandate.
• Overhead utility lines are becoming a thing of the past except in rural areas.
• The urban underground has become a spider’s web of utility lines, including phones, electricity, gas, cable TV, fiber optics, traffic signals, street lighting circuits, drainage and flood control facilities, water mains and waste water pipes. In some locations, major oil and gas pipelines, national defense communication lines, mass transit, and rail and road tunnels also compete for space underground.
• The deregulation of utility services is adding to the problem as multiple service providers seek to place their networks underground.
• The U.S. underground infrastructure comprises millions of miles of buried pipelines and cables that transport petroleum, natural gas, electricity, communications, cable television, steam, water and sewer.
• A single pipeline accident has the potential to cause a catastrophic disaster that can kill people, injure hundreds more, affect thousands more, and cost millions of dollars in terms of property damage, loss of work opportunity, community disruption, ecological damage and insurance liability.
• Excavation and construction activities are the largest single cause of accidents to pipelines. Data maintained by the U.S. Department of Transportation, Research and Special Programs Administration, Office of Pipeline Safety, indicate that damage from outside force is the leading cause of leaks and ruptures to pipeline systems, accounting for about 38 percent of the reported failures. According to the data, two-thirds of these failures are the result of third-party damage; that is, damage cause by someone other than the pipeline operator.
• Reports from the 20th World Gas Congress confirm that excavator damage is the leading cause of pipeline related accidents in most countries.
• According to the Network Reliability Steering Committee, an industry group appointed by the Federal Communications Commission, excavation damage is a major cause of interruptions to fiber cable service.
• The demand for natural gas is growing sharply. Studies in the year 2000 state that annual U.S. gas consumption could increase by 60% over the next 20 years. Transmission and distribution line mileage must increase by about 30% at a cost of more than $150 billion dollars to meet this demand.