Streamlining Communication for Damage Protection and Environmental Protection

Our utility clients have an expansive underground infrastructure network often accompanied by extensive soil and groundwater contamination. Typically, two separate internal organizations must be aware of planned excavation activities: the damage prevention department and an environmental remediation department. Damage protection review is a high priority internally for the utility client to ensure it protects buried infrastructure from an excavation. The role of the utility’s environmental department is to manage the cleanup of its own spill sites, including the cleanup of any manufactured gas plant (MGP) residues, and assure that an excavation does not breach any institutional or engineering controls.

Many utilities rely on and value the One Call System for advance notice of excavations to prevent excavation into their own cleanup sites . Still, an ongoing challenge is efficient coordination between the two departments in reviewing a high volume of excavation tickets, compiling responses, and providing a single integrated communication response to the excavator that alerts them to potential hazards. This communication also must extend to multiple “locators” that provide field support to the utility company.

Leveraging the damage protection department, Terradex utilizes our LandWatch solution to create a communication ecosystem that promptly facilitates delivery of the environmental department’s evaluation to the other locators. Acting as an environmental traffic cop, Terradex screens a high volume of excavation notices and removes any repeated tickets as part of this coordinated process. Our proprietary ticket tracking system allows for streamlined responses, ensures efficiencies, and eliminates unnecessary reviews of duplicative alerts. This specialized solution simplifies a tedious and time-consuming process and provides an efficient, practical approach to ensure damage prevention during excavation.