Testimony on Underground Utility Line Protection Act

House Consumer Affairs Committee

June 5, 2017

Broadband Cable Association of Pennsylvania 1 'ii7 Suo .. S..,_~ ~"II• PA 17101

717-21<1-li!OCO II) 717-214-2020

Firet: In Broadband. Th Future of Broadband.•

Penn1ylvania One Call Sy1tem. Inc. 925 Irwin Run Road

West Mifflin, PA 15122-1078 (412) 464-7100

www.paonecall.org

Testimony of

William G. Kiger, President & CEO and

William P. Boswell, General Counsel

Pennsylvania One Call System, Inc.

Before the House Consumer Affairs Committee On House Bill 284

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania June 5, 2017

Our purpose is to prevent damage to underground facil ities . To promote safety, we provide an efficient and effective communications network among project owners, designers, excavators , and facility owners .

Penn1ylvania One Call Jy1tem. Inc. UUlPR Te1timony June to 17

Good morning Chairman Godshall, Chairman Caltagirone, and members of the House Consumer Affairs Committee. We thank you for the opportunity to appear on behalf of our 36 member board 1 and testify regarding legislation amending the Underground Utility Line Protection Act (UULPA).

Please know this General Assembly, as well as previous ones, can take great pride in writing into law and administering UULPA. Pennsylvania's statute has been used as a model for numerous other states and at least seven (7) foreign countries. We appreciate the support for public safety, protection for Excavators and underground utility damage prevention that the Legislature, including members of this committee, have shown over the years in the passage of various pieces of legislation that have resulted in the success of our one call law and 45 years of service the PA One Call System has provided to date.

We commend Representative Baker and cosponsors of this legislation, as well as legislative supporters in what we believe take the aspect of public safety to a new level.

Damage Prevention Service,s Provided POCS is a non-profit service company dedicated to minimizing utility service interruptions, reducing on-the-job injuries and deaths, promoting a higher level of public safety and protecting the environment.

Since its inception in 1968, Pennsylvania One Call System has increased its membership from 6 utilities in one county to 3,552 underground facility owner I operators in all 67 counties from the following industries: cable television, electric, gas, propane, Marcellus shale, pipeline, sewer, telecommunications, telephone, water and government, including state, county, city, borough, townships of the 1st class, townships of the 2nd class, and municipal authorities. Members also include private master meter companies, manufactured housing communities, and private entities, such as schools, hospitals, manufacturing sites, and others owning underground facilities which cross public roads.

The organization incorporated 4/6/1978.

1 Pennsylvania Builders Association, Comcast Cable Communication Management LLC, NUCA Pennsylvania, Larson Design Group, Inc., First Energy, Adams Electric Cooperative, Duquesne Light Company, PPL Electric Utilities Corporation, Columbia Gas of Pennsylvania, PECO Energy, National Fuel, Peoples Natural Gas, Pennsylvania Department of Labor& Industry, Philadelphia Gas Works, Butler Township, Pennsylvania Municipal Authorities Association, Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs, Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors, North Wales Water Authority, PA Emergency Management Agency, Pennsylvania Department of Transportation, Texas Eastern/Enbridge, Williams Gas Pipeline - Transco, Sunoco Pipeline Company, UGI Utilities, Inc., Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission, Verizon Business, RCN Telecom Services, Verizon Pennsylvania LLC, Windstream Communications, CenturyLink, Verizon North, LLC, Lehigh County Authority, Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority, Pennsylvania American Water, Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County

Our purpose is to prevent damage to underground facilities. To promote safety, we provide an efficient and effective communications network among project owners, designers, excavators, and facility owners.

2

Penn1ylvania One Call Sy1tem. Inc. UUlPA Te1Hmony June 1017

Use of the service increased from 389 work location requests the first year reaching a record breaking 812,682 notifications in 2016. These notifications generated 5,905,360 outbound tickets transmitted to facility owners.

The company can be reached using the national call before you dig number of 8-1-1 or through its toll free telephone number 800-242-1776 by anyone requesting location of underground lines prior to digging. The service is available 24 hours per day, every day of the year. Information is obtained from the person planning or scheduling excavation or demolition. In addition to phoning the call center, users with credentials that have taken the Web Ticket Entry training may enter their dig notices via our website www.paonecall.org . The collected data is referred to as a Work Location Request, 'Dig Notice' or Ticket'. After creation of a dig notice, a ticket confirmation, which is a copy of the ticket, is sent to users and to callers who provide their email address or fax number. The emailed ticket confirmation includes a hyperlink to the map graphic of the work site.

Whether the notice information is gathered by phone or entered via the web, it is disseminated to underground facility owner/ operators via email, data modem, or fax. Facility owners have the option to request voice relay to their emergency personnel outside normal business hours when requested. Additionally, for emergency tickets, facility owners may request to receive a text notification when an emergency ticket is sent to their designated receiving email address. The system accepts automated responses from facility operators and relays them to the excavator or designer through our KARL system.

Members are required to "register" their underground facility locations by providing us with a list of counties and municipalities in which their lines are located. An additional electronic "member mapping" service is offered, which allows members to define polygonal notification areas, with adjustable buffers, to reduce the number of non-involved dig notices they receive. This saves members time and money, as they do not need to research or respond to dig notices outside their mapped service territory. Persons reporting planned excavation also benefit from our electronic mapping as they can draw a polygon to delineate the proposed excavation area, notifying only the members within the drawn polygon.

Design notifications are the first step in effective damage prevention efforts. The Design Drawing Exchange portal was launched in early 2012 to allow designers to electronically share geo-registered pdfs with member facility owners, saving time, paper, and postage.

Complex Projects are processed via the Pre-Construction Meeting Request portal, used to coordinate meetings between excavators and facility owners, track project scope, attendees and the agreed upon locate schedules. Launching Web Ticket Entry from the PCMR portal automatically references the Meeting Request Number, tying all related documentation together.

Our purpose is to prevent damage to underground facilities. To promote safety, we provide an efficient and effective communications network among project owners, designers, excavators, and facility owners .

3

Penn1ylvania One Call Sy1tem. Inc. UUlPA Te1Hmony June 1017

Education and Public Awareness are a critical part of the service we provide. Educational programs are offered targeting facility owners, designers, excavators, and locators. Safety presentations are available to all stakeholder groups including first responders. These presentations are a major focus at our five regional Safety Days, where keynote speakers, such as Cliff Meidl, Brad Livingston, and Eric Guigere have shared their personal stories of injury and recovery, and encourage others to avoid short cuts when performing excavation work.

We heighten public awareness through social media via Facebook and Twitter; our attendance at trade shows and safety conferences; homeowner outreach via postcards and surrounding neighbor postcards; print ads; radio ads' sports related advertising with the Pittsburgh Steelers, Philadelphia Eagles, and we leverage joint awareness efforts through partnerships with our members at the Wilkes Barre­Scranton RailRiders, the Altoona Curve, and other minor league baseball entities.

Our grassroots efforts include: public awareness outreach to our state officials, i.e., Senate, House, Governor, County Commissioners, and local government entities, who in turn give us proclamations to support our efforts and the communication service; the banner program outreach program where our member facility owners are involved promoting safe digging on our behalf; and the Fire House outreach program where first responders promote safe digging within their communities. Other media used includes: Pandora, Multiview, and a sidewalk billboard campaign in Center City Philadelphia.

We support the national 811 awareness efforts in cooperation with other one call centers throughout the United States.

Development to Date One Call was created as a sub-committee of the Pittsburgh Public Service Coordinating Committee in 1968. Operations were established in September 1972 and the service covered 6 utilities serving Allegheny County in Southwestern Pennsylvania.

In April 1975, Act 287 (1974) went into effect requiring excavators to call before digging, and expanded the service area to 11 counties. At that time, in honor of the 1776 United States Bicentennial, the toll free number 800-242-1776 was added as an additional way to reach the call center, and coverage included the 33 counties of Western Pennsylvania. Expansion continued across the Commonwealth in 1977, adding Central Pennsylvania in a mergerwith JUNE (Joint Utility Notification for Excavators) and the Southeastern counties were added in September 1977.

Having established the 'Call Before You Dig' concept in the state, the Pennsylvania One Call System and the contractor associations sought passage of legislation mandating participation by all underground facility owner I operators.

• Enactment of Act 172 (1986) brought major growth and clearly established

4 Our purpose is to prevent damage to underground facilities. To promote safety, we provide an efficient

and effective communications network among proje<:t owners, designers, excavators, and facility owners.

Penn1ylvania One Call Sy1tem. Inc. UUlPA Te1Hmony June 1017

the need for a full time staff to coordinate member services and perform the duties of the corporation.

• Enactment of Act 38 (1991) placed new responsibilities on engineers, architects, contractors, facility owners and municipalities.

• Enactment of Act 187 (1996) brought about change in the composition and structure of the Board of Directors and provided for greater enforcement abilities involving the PA Department of Labor & Industry (Department).

• At the Department's request, Act 199 (2004) provided the Department greater enforcement authority and redefined the administrative fines and penalties.

• Enactment of Act 181 (2006) incorporated Subsurface Utility Engineering requirements, began requiring adherence to CGA Best Practices and HDD Good Practices by reference, defined responsibilities of a project owner and a complex project, gave the Board of Directors the ability to define the maximum area of a notification and included other factors concerning the operation of the System.

• Act 121 (2008) re-inserted the "good Samaritan" clause which allows facility owners to identify the location of underground lines on private property which they do not own as a helpful guide to excavators without assuming liability for their efforts.

Pennsylvania One Call System serves all 67 counties and employs over 80 people.

Our development goals are for increased participation by all underground facility owner/ operators, project owners, designers and excavators, and elimination of all legislative exemptions.

Mr. Kiger and I have worked together since 1978, and we have served on the Common Ground Alliance - Best Practices committee since the U.S. Congress first commissioned it in 1998. Pennsylvania is the only state with two CGA Damage Prevention Hall of Fame members, Mr. Kiger in 2007, and me in 2008.

Again we thank the sponsors and this Committee for your commitment for public safety and will be happy to respond to any questions you may have.

Respectfully Submitted,

William G. Kiger, President/CEO William P. Boswell, General Counsel Pennsylvania One Call System, Inc.

Contacts: email - wgkiger@palcall.org _!YPboswell@verizon.net jasassoc@aol.com

phone - 412-464-7111 - 412-999-8008 - 724-290-8210

Our purpose is to prevent damage to underground facilities. To promote safety, we provide an efficient and effective communications network among project owners , designers, excavators, and facility owners .

5

2017 PA One Call Board of Directors

Representative Company Industry

1 Joseph Murphy* North Wales Water Authority Municipal Principal

2 G. J. "Jerry" Mclnaw• Williams Gas Pipeline - Transco Pipe Line

3 Ray Geesey* Columbia Gas of Pennsylvania Gas

4 Michael Kyle* Pennsylvania Municipal Authorities Association Municipal Principal

5 Kevin German• Lehigh County Authority Water

6 Stephen Schafer* FirstEnergy Electric

7 James Reynolds* Pennsylvania American Water Water

8 David Bolton Adams Electric Cooperative Electric

9 Edward Kirkwood Butler Township Municipal Principal

10 Leo Hilbert Century Link Telephone

11 Rick Maslen Comcast Cable Communication Management LLC Cable Television

12 John R. Andzelik Duquesne Light Company Electric

13 William Berger Larson Design Group, Inc. Associate-Design

14 Mark Shaffer Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County Water

15 Dave Hart National Fuel Gas

16 Armando Ferri NUCA Pennsylvania Associate-Contractor

17 Dave Haverstick PECO Energy Gas

18 Vacant PEMA PEMA

19 Douglas Mashaw Pennsylvania Builders Association Associate-Association

20 Nsungwe Shamatutu PA Department of Labor & Industry Labor & Industry

21 David Parise Pennsylvania Department of Transportation Penn DOT

22 Paul Metro Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission PUC

23 Thomas Gramling Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs Municipal General

24 Holly Fishel Pennsylvania State Association of Township Supervisors Municipal General

25 Don Zombek Peoples Natural Gas Gas

26 Joseph Leva Philadelphia Gas Works Municipal Principal

27 John McCarthy Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority Water

28 Mark C. Santayana PPL Electric Utilities Corporation Electric

29 Tyrone Cokley RCN Telecom Services Telecomm

30 Tracy L. Hoffman Sunoco Pipeline Company Pipe Line

31 Robert Johnson Texas Eastern/Enbridge Pipe Line

32 Eric Swartley UGI Utilities, Inc. Pipe Line

33 Kenneth Montanari Verizon Business Telecomm

34 Michael Geary Verizon North, LLC Telephone

35 Javed Dennisseur Verizon Pennsylvania LLC Telephone

36 William Price Windstream Communications Telephone

*Executive Committee 05/31/17