Good morning. It's a pleasure to be here to discuss an important issue - excavation damage prevention. As you know, excavation damage is a leading cause of pipeline accidents in the United States. Because of the significance of this problem, in 1997, the National Transportation Safety Board added damage prevention to underground facilities to its list of Most Wanted Transportation Safety Improvements.

The Safety Board is charged with investigating major pipeline accidents, determining the probable cause of those accidents, and making safety recommendations to prevent a recurrence. Since 1967, NTSB has investigated over 400 pipeline accidents and issued nearly 1200 recommendations to improve pipeline safety. We have made recommendations to regulators, pipeline operators, emergency response organizations and industry associations, such as the American Public Works Association. Some of these safety recommendations have called for very specific action, while other recommendations have called for broad studies or asked the industry to share information about the lessons learned.

While all of these recommendations have addressed important safety issues, I don't believe any single safety recommendation is more important than recommendations we have made asking government and industry to work together to solve excavation safety issues.

After enactment of the Transportation Equity Act for the 21st Century in 1998, RSPA organized a study of One-Call Systems and damage prevention practices. Participants from pipeline operators, communications companies, power distributors, construction companies, one-call centers, railroads, industry associations, state and federal government agencies, and other organizations worked together. Although participants had differing views, they agreed to what the study promised in its title: Common Ground. Many of you participated and are to be commended for your time and effort.

"Common Ground" is quite an accomplishment. It reflects the ideas, shared and discussed by some of "the best" across the industries. Now - it is up to you to keep the momentum - continue to communicate, continue to improve working relations, and continue to improve "best practices."
Currently, there are over 2 million miles of natural gas pipelines and about 165,000 miles of hazardous liquid pipelines running under the United States, much of it under our cities and towns. In addition, nearly 70 percent of new homes are now provided service for natural gas. Add to that the innumerable communications, water, sewer, cable TV, and other utility lines that are also being buried. In all, the U.S. underground infrastructure comprises about 20 million miles of pipe, cable and wire. If laid end to end, that material would be enough to wrap around the earth over 800 times. More utility lines are being buried underground every day. The bottom line is that no one can dig anywhere in the country without a part of the country's underground utility infrastructure being close by - too close not to take every precaution possible before moving one shovel of dirt.
Using the one-call system should be a first step contractors take before beginning any excavation work. All of you know that the one-call system is designed as a communication tool that allows excavators and underground facility owners to effectively coordinate with one another.
Before an excavator begins digging, the excavator calls the one-call system and provides the location of the proposed excavation. The underground facility owners can then arrange to have their facilities marked so that the excavator knows where the facilities are and can avoid them. But too many times excavators fail to make that critical call.

In 1996, the Safety Board investigated an accident near Gramercy, Louisiana, in which almost half a million gallons of gasoline leaked into a nearby marsh and river after a pipeline was damaged during excavation activities. Apparently a contractor damaged the pipeline about six months before the rupture actually occurred. The Board couldn't find any evidence that the contractor had used the one-call system, made any attempt to coordinate the excavation activities with the pipeline's owner, or made any attempt to notify the pipeline operator that the pipeline had been damaged.

Last November, the Safety Board adopted a report of another tragic pipeline accident. In January 1999, in Bridgeport, Alabama, a backhoe operator damaged a natural gas service line that resulted in two leaks. One leak occurred after the backhoe bucket contacted and pulled the natural gas service line.

The second leak occurred where the gas service line separated at a joint near a building. Gas then migrated from the separated line into the building and eventually ignited. An explosion followed, killing three people, injuring five others, and destroying three buildings.

The investigation revealed that the contractor had failed to use the one-call system. Although two persons involved in the accident told our investigators that they had marked the gas service line before they began digging, we saw no signs of markings.

Excavators must also ensure the safety and adequacy of their excavation procedures when they're working near underground utilities. In the Bridgeport, Alabama accident, the contractor knew that there was a gas service line in the area. However, there was no indication that he had instructed his backhoe operator to use appropriate precautions - such as hand digging or establishing a tolerance zone around the line - when he dug close to the gas service line. As a result, the backhoe damaged the gas service line.

The 1996 accident in San Juan, Puerto Rico was the deadliest pipeline accident ever investigated by the Safety Board. Thirty-three people died as a result of a propane gas explosion.

During our investigation, Safety Board investigators found a cracked and leaking 1-1/4 inch diameter plastic pipe close to the explosion. Beneath that pipe was a 16-inch diameter water pipeline, which had been installed some time after the plastic pipe. The Safety Board concluded that the manner in which the water line was installed imposed excessive stresses on the plastic gas service pipeline and resulted in the pipe's later failure. And, we believed that the accident could have been avoided had appropriate precautions been taken to protect the plastic pipeline during subsequent excavation activities.

In 1997, in Indianapolis, Indiana, one person was killed and six homes were destroyed after directional drilling operations damaged a 20-inch diameter natural gas pipeline. The drilling damage had actually occurred about two months prior to the failure and went undetected until the 20-inch gas line was being returned to service. The Safety Board found that adequate controls were not in place to ensure that directional drilling operations would not damage other underground facilities. Following our investigation, the Safety Board recommended that industry improve safe practices for directional drilling operations.

In December 1998, in St. Cloud, Minnesota, a natural gas explosion killed four individuals and destroyed six buildings in the downtown area. As a contractor was installing a utility pole anchor close to a natural gas service pipeline, the anchor hit a buried granite slab, followed the slab, and severed the gas line. The Safety Board found that the contractor's procedures were inadequate because they did not address unusual circumstances, such as striking a significant underground obstacle.

In its report last year, the Safety Board issued recommendations to various contractor associations to advise their members to review and revise their anchor installation procedures as necessary to ensure that safety margins around buried utilities are observed throughout the installation process.

After severing the pipeline in St. Cloud, the contractor did not promptly call either 911 or the utility owner. Gas escaped and migrated into the basement of a nearby building for about 40 minutes before it exploded.

Had the contractor called 911 or the utility owner immediately after the rupture, emergency responders and the utility owner may have been able to assess the risk and to take actions that could have either prevented the explosion or saved the four lives lost in that accident.

As a result of its investigation into the St. Cloud accident, the Safety Board issued a recommendation to RSPA to include a new best practice in the Common Ground study that would advise excavators to notify the pipeline operator immediately if their work damages a pipeline and to call 911 (or other local emergency response number) immediately if the damage results in a release of natural gas or other hazardous substance or potentially endangers life, health, or property.

This summer, the Safety Board adopted a report of yet another tragic pipeline accident. In South Riding, Virginia, in 1998, a plastic natural gas service line failed and gas migrated into a newly built home. It was a family's first night in their new home. The mother died after the gas ignited and the home exploded.

Corrosion and subsequent overheating and arcing at a splice in one of the conductors of the triplex electrical service line, which because of inadequate separation between the electrical conductors and the gas service line, led to the failure of the gas service line. Precipitating the electrical service line failure was damage done to the electrical service line during the installation of the gas service line and/or during subsequent excavation of the electrical line.

Heat, generated from the arcing had caused the gas service line wall to soften and weaken until the internal pressure breached the pipeline. Had the gas and electrical service lines been adequately separated, heat from the arcing electrical conductor failure would probably not have damaged the gas service line. As a result of our investigation, the Safety Board recommended that RSPA establish minimum separation distances between plastic natural gas service lines and underground electrical facilities.

Over the years, the Safety Board has recommended that industry and government improve one-call systems, improve technology for locating underground utilities, improve marking and mapping of underground facilities, improve training programs, and improve participation in excavation damage prevention programs. There has been progress in each of these areas, but not enough. We need to do more.

It will take the cooperation and dedication of everyone, at every level of an organization and at every level of government to create an environment that nurtures safe practices and makes safety a priority in a corporation's strategic planning and day-to-day operations. Accidents aren't caused by a single factor - and they don't occur in a vacuum. Safety and accident prevention must be everyone's concern and responsibility - an organization's leadership must be committed to safety and to making sure that everyone knows, by word and deed, that it is a priority.

Make safety your number one priority and carry that message back to your organization, and then be sure it's incorporated into your standard operating procedures.

Thank you for inviting me to be here today.