Author: Jason Yochim

Post-83 – SUE for Municipalities

Subsurface Utility Engineering for Municipalities is an ASCE publication that all SUE practitioners should have and read.

 Jim Anspach has provided some interesting background information in this document that pertains to ASCE 38-22 (Standard Guideline for Investigating and Documenting Existing Utilities) but is not contained in that document. Also included only in this document, as shown in the subtitle, are Prequalification Criteria and a Scope of Work Guide.

 For those of you that like history, it may interest you to know that this is actually the third edition of the document.  The first edition was a manual written by Jim Thorne (co-author of the Highway/Utility Guide) in 1997 for the American Public Works Association (APWA). In about 2005, Al Field who was Chair of the APWA’s prestigious UPROW Committee (Utilities and Public Right-of-Way) asked Jim Anspach and Paul Scott to update Jim Thorne’s manual, which they did and it was distributed widely to APWA members. Again, in about 2015, Al asked Jim and Paul to update it again. They did, and it was subsequently published by the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) and is available from ASCE today.

 I hope you have a copy of Subsurface Utility Engineering for Municipalities. It’s full of lots of good information about SUE.

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SUE ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE
SEPTEMBER 17-19, 2024.

“Hope You Can Attend”

Post-84 – Value of SUE on Individual Projects

Several weeks ago, we looked at SUE studies performed by Purdue University, University of Toronto, and Pennsylvania State University. These studies projected savings of $3.62, $3.41, and $22.21, respectively, for every $1.00 spent for SUE. These savings came primarily from the elimination of unnecessary utility relocations and reductions in delay claims.

Last week we looked at “Subsurface Utility Engineering for Municipalities,” which is a document that contains the results of cost studies on highway, transit, airport, and other individual projects. Below are five examples.

1. On a major highway project in the early 1990s, the Virginia DOT’s design consultant used SUE data and determined that conflicts with utilities would occur at 75 sites. As a result, design changes were made and 61 of the potential conflicts were eliminated. By making these changes, $731,425 worth of utility adjustments were avoided, whereas the cost of digging the test holes was only $93,553, resulting in a savings of $637,872.

2. The North Carolina DOT evaluated four of its early SUE projects and found that the DOT saved $420,000.00 and paid SUE firms only $77,550.96, thus saving $5.42 for every $1.00 spent. It was concluded that it was very cost effective to use SUE on a regular basis, and that SUE provided tremendous benefits for the DOT, the utility companies, the consultants, and the public.

3. The Ontario Ministry of Transportation’s (MTO) first SUE investigation was performed prior to designing an interchange improvement project. The investigation identified several discrepancies in the record data that could have caused major delays and cost increases. The MTO realized savings of over $62,000 due to the completion of the SUE investigation and had a return on investment of $2.48 for each $1 spent.

4. On a Georgia DOT project a median barrier was installed on a stretch of highway leading to the beach. This highway had high accident ratings, drainage problems, and turtle crossings. SUE information enabled the design consultant to strategically place the wall and equip it to reduce accidents and accommodate both the drainage and the turtles.

5. Designers on a large design-build project in Texas used SUE information and developed plans to avoid relocating several high-pressure pipelines and as a result prevented project delays and saved $3.0 million.

The above, and many more case studies contained in “Subsurface Utility Engineering for Municipalities” were extremely important back in the early days when the value of SUE was unknown. They are not as important today because experience has shown SUE to be a cost-effective best practice on projects involving excavation and subsurface utilities.

Please Don’t Forget:

  The SUE ASSOCIATION CONFERENCE in Nashville on September 17-19.

Post-87 – History of SUE Association

The SUE Association was the brainchild of John Berrettini and Mike Maguire, both of A/I/Data in Baltimore. They contemplated the idea in 2009 and had intermittent discussions with colleagues in other firms, but no action was taken until 2014 when  Berrettini and Justin Klein of the Klein Agency met with John Palatiello to discuss the process of creating an association.

Berrettini and Klein knew Palatiello from his role as Executive Director of the Maryland Society of Surveyors and were aware of his track record as Executive Director of MAPPS, the trade association of photogrammetry and geospatial firms, Administrator of the Council on Federal Procurement of Architectural and Engineering Services (COFPAES), and other association clients he served in the surveying, mapping, and A&E field.

Klein retained Palatiello to do a feasibility study and a dinner meeting of SUE firms in the Middle Atlantic region was convened in Bethesda, Maryland in March of 2015 in which different options for an association were presented and discussed. The representatives of the seven firms present (A/I/DATA, Accumark, JMT, KCI, Klein Agency, AMT, Insight, and AB Consultants) all agreed that next steps should be taken. That resulted in the compilation of names and contact information for principals in SUE firms and the dissemination of an online questionnaire.

Ultimately an “interest meeting” was held in Washington, DC in July of 2018. At that meeting, Palatiello and Berrettini presented a “straw man” of a national association, with a membership of private sector SUE service firms as Regular Members, with suppliers and related firms as Associate Members. Those present endorsed the proposal. As a result, bylaws were adopted and the first board of directors and officers were elected, with Berrettini selected as the first President and Palatiello was named Executive Director. Some of the members of the first board of directors are pictured.

The SUE Association was up and running. More about it and what it was doing will be discussed next week.