by Diana Barnum
Correspondent
Here is a good question. “If the utilities come out, mark their lines
and inadvertently miss one, are drillers responsible for hitting lines
that aren’t marked?” asked Ron White, trenchless technology division
manager of Cook Paving & Construction Co., Inc., and president of the
Ohio Horizontal Directional Drilling (HDD) Association.
Here is a bad
answer.
“Yes,” said Ken Yost, utilities coordinator for the City of
Columbus Transportation Division. “But we are in the process of making
electronic maps and putting them online.” The maps will not include
utility lines, though, due to cost factors.
Yost is trying to help,
though. He was the featured speaker at a recent meeting of the Ohio HDD
Association meeting in Bellville, Ohio. Yost showed a video of a brick
sewer line buried under a major street in downtown Columbus. What was
interesting was some cable that had been drilled right through the brick
sewer. In other words, the contractor did not stop when he lost flow. He
kept on drilling, completed the job, collected payment and left.
Results of that job? The sewer began leaking. It collapsed. The street
caved in. Unfortunately, a Columbus lawyer had been driving a Mercedes
Benz on the street at the time and landed in a 20-foot hole - car and all.
(He did come out uninjured.)
Not long after this incident, Yost was
asked to develop regulations governing the use of HDD in the City of
Columbus and he has just completed the development of a Utility
Coordination manual. He distributed copies and discussed their inclusion
as Section 17 within the General Rules and Regulations for City Chapter
903 of the Department of Public Service, Transportation Division, City of
Columbus, Ohio. Section 17 covers:
• Preplanning - This section details
the development of a drill plan, 50 scale minimum, investigate existing
utilities, then proceed in the City Right-of-Way ONLY with an approved
permit from the Transportation Administrator.
• Preconstruction - This
section details notification of Ohio Utilities Protection Service (OUPS)
and city utility owners, marking the drill path and locate verification.
• During Construction - This section details site walkover and
equipment calibration, exposed utilities, drilling operations monitoring,
maintenance of markings, drilling fluid control, emergency contacts,
damage instructions, and sewer video inspection.
Ignorance of the law
is not acceptable. Violations of policy can be fined $1,000 or imprisoned
for up to six months, or both. And the City Attorney does enforce the
law.
Yost concluded his presentation with a discussed of the importance
and value of following the Good Drilling Practice Guidelines. These
Guidelines are a comprehensive reference for training field-responsible
personnel to make effective, safe installations using HDD technology. They
were developed by members of the DCCA, Distribution Contractors
Association, Equipment Manufacturers Institute, National Utility
Contractors Association, North American Society for Trenchless Technology,
and Power & Communications Contractors Association. Had the Guidelines
been enforced at the time of the brick sewer dilemma on the video,
operations would have been different.
“When you drill a hole and lose
flow, you should stop and try to find out why,” said John Christ (short
“i”), of Baroid-IDP and manufacturing representative for the Ohio HDD
Association. “Dig down and find out.”
Members of the Ohio HDD
Association are proactive. Their original membership application already
stipulates that applicants must “adhere to the Good Drilling Practice
Guidelines as published by the HDD Consortium.”
Yost invited Ohio HDD
members to attend monthly Ohio Damage Prevention Council meetings in their
areas for further proactive involvement in underground drilling operations
and distributed a schedule of meetings throughout Ohio. Yost holds
Associate Degrees in both Surveying and Civil Engineering and coordinates
the city’s roadway improvement operations with the utilities that serve
the Columbus area. He is also a founding member of the Greater Columbus
Damage Prevention Council and currently serves as President of the
Council.
The Ohio HDD Association has other proactive plans in the
works. They will be promoting the HDD industry and inviting new members to
join at the Ohio Construction Expo at Veteran’s Memorial in Columbus on
February 20- 21, 2003. They will also be participating in the Ohio Safety
Congress in April in Columbus with back-to-back training sessions. And
plans are in the works to possibly host their first convention in
conjunction with the Midwest Society for Trenchless Technology symposium
on April 17-18 at Bowling Green State University.
If you would like to
be proactive and get better answers to damage questions, the Ohio HDD
invites you to be proactive with them and join their ranks. For more
information, contact Ohio HDD Association Office, Dan Schlosser, P. O. Box
310, Caledonia, Ohio USA 43314. Call: (800) 537-6585 or (419) 845-2023, or
fax inquiries to: (419) 845-2026. Visit ohiohdd.org or e-mail:
ASSNHQ@gte.net . For more information about General Rules and Regulations
regarding HDD in Columbus, contact Kenneth Yost, Utilities Coordinator,
Public Service Dept. Engineering and Construction Division, 109 N. Front
St. / 3rd Floor, Columbus, OH 43215. Call: (614) 645-8018, or fax
inquiries to: (614) 645-6938. |