Category: Pauls Corner

CONCLUSION

The Serendipitous History of Colorado’s Senate Bill 18-167

Part 4 by James H. Anspach

One of the key players in any legislative effort is the Office of the Governor and its priorities. Governor Hickenlooper, a geologist and businessman, was concerned over explosions due to damaged natural gas lines during construction. A recent incident called the Firestone Explosion killed several innocent bystanders, and so utility construction safety was on his mind. He had several meetings to see what could be done, and GENERALLY was in support of Sen. Scott’s initiative. As the noise of utility initiatives continued to grow, Jim Anspach was able to gather Gov. Hickenlooper’s ear regarding ASCE 38, issues with Sen. Scott’s solution, and in general received support from the Governor.

While all of these different stakeholders were being courted, Sen. Ray Scott continued on with his campaign to get his revised legislation to a vote. Eventually, the bill passed both chambers and was signed into act by Gov Hickenlooper on May 25, 2018, and became enforceable on August 8, 2018.

IN GENERAL TERMS, THE COLORADO LEGISLATION SAYS THAT ANY PUBLIC PROJECT OF SIZE THAT INCLUDES EXCAVATION OR BORING, MUST TRY TO ACHIEVE QLB ON ANY AND ALL UTILITIES WITHIN THE PROJECT LIMITS, UNLESS AN ENGINEER DECIDES IT IS UNNECESSARY.

The Colorado Attorney General’s office subsequently ruled that SUE plans and reports must be signed and sealed by a Professional Engineer (PE). CDOT took the position that any project, including utility accommodation projects in their rights-of way that required permits, fell under this legislation.

Many people contributed to the success of this effort, and it really was not part of any master plan on anyone’s part. It really was knowing and getting all the right people to the table at the same relative time period with a solution that worked for everyone. It could, and should, work in every state to protect the public health, safety, and welfare of issues surrounding existing buried utilities.

THANK YOU, JIM ANSPACH, FOR PREPARING THIS PRESENTATION AND FOR ALLOWING ME TO POST IT.

More information about Colorado’s Senate Bill 18-167 and a copy of the bill itself can be found at https://leg.colorado.gov/bills/sb18-167.

A PowerPoint presentation by Andrew Sylvest (Utility Engineering Operations Manager, SAM Family of Companies) contains more information about the workings and implementation of Colorado’s Senate Bill 18-167 and can be found at Q7_2_SB-18-167-Presentation (steamboatsprings.net).

POST 79 – MUTCD

The USDOT’s Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD) is an important part of Subsurface Utility Engineering (SUE). 

Many of SUE’s designating and locating activities involve work on or near streets and highways. Motorists often do not expect these intrusions and therefore should be informed well in advance of what is going on. Nationally mandated information for doing this is contained in Part 6 of the MUTCD, which addresses temporary traffic control (TTC). TTC involves the use of signs, markings, and other devices used to regulate, warn, or guide users of roadway facilities.

 The MUTCD is published by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) and contains national standards for all traffic control devices, including highway signs, markings, and other devices. It is updated periodically to accommodate the nation’s changing transportation needs and to address new safety technologies, traffic control tools, and traffic management techniques.

 On December 19, 2023, a Final Rule adopted the 11th Edition of the MUTCD and was published in the Federal Register with an effective date of January 18, 2024. States were required to adopt the 11th Edition of the National MUTCD as their legal State standard for traffic control devices within two years from the effective date. The Federal Register notice, which provides detailed discussion of the final dispositions of major changes from the 2009 edition, can be viewed at https://www.federalregister.gov/d/2023-27178.

FHWA does not print paper copies of the MUTCD. It is available, however, as a free PDF document at 11th Edition of the MUTCD.

More next week about applicability of the MUTCD to SUE.

POST 80 – SANDY WILSON

Sandy Wilson just completed her 28^th consecutive year working for the T2 Utility Engineers where she is a Project Manager for the Illinois Office. I can only think of a few people that have been with their present companies doing SUE work for that length of time. The history of SUE in Illinois and Sandy’s history coincide and continues to this day. I find that pretty amazing. I asked Sandy to tell us a little bit about it and the following is what she had to say:

“I started my career with Tampa Bay Engineering back in 1996 in Bloomington, Illinois. During this time, our company had started to grow outside the state of Florida, and we had changed our name to TBE Group, Inc. The Illinois office at the time was providing OSP (Telephony Signal Source Provider Contract) Outside Plant System Design Services for GTE North for new fiber optic installations throughout Illinois and Wisconsin. When GTE North was purchased by Verizon in 1998/1999, all contracts with GTE soon ended. Verizon decided to keep all design services in house. I was given the opportunity by TBE to remain with the company to begin learning about Subsurface Utility Engineering.

My work started on various SUE assignments out of our Indianapolis office for a short period of time. TBE was awarded a SUE contract with the Illinois Department of Transportation for IDOT District 1, and we soon opened our new Illinois branch office performing SUE services in the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago in 2001. I was not the original manager when we opened our office in Bloomington, Illinois. I was the administrative technical support assistant to the OSP Engineers who taught me how to interpret telephone and fiber optic as-built records that were drawn by hand before CADD software became available.

After my time in Indiana learning the SUE process and procedures, my job description had changed to Assistant Utility Coordinator and then I was promoted to Assistant Project Manager. Over the years, I trained with several managers who currently work for T2 and along with other managers prior who no longer work for us, that helped me be successful in my current position. Over the years, we had developed relationships with clients by educating their project team on the benefits of SUE Services.

Today, we continue to perform SUE Services for the Illinois Department of Transportation Districts 1 and 8 and other various clients throughout Illinois. We do take the time to listen and tailor each project based on the client’s needs to give them a quality SUE deliverable and complete their projects efficiently and with reduced risks.”

Thank you, Sandy. You are pretty amazing. 

Is there anyone else in the SUE community with a similar history? If so, please send me an email at cpscott532@aol.com and let me know.  Thanks!

#SuburfaceUtilityEngineering

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.

 ——————–

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.