WHEREAS BC Hydro has decided to no longer provide field locates of its buried underground hydro services; AND WHEREAS BC Hydros proposed alternative of using plans to locate its services is unreliable, creates a safety concern, and adds to a municipalitys underground construction costs: THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that BC Hydro reinstate the field locate service for buried underground hydro service.
MINISTRY OF ENERGY AND MINES BC Hydro will, at no cost, provide location drawings when requested and will assist in interpreting these drawings. Physical field checks would only take place if the drawings are insufficient or non-existent. BC Hydro continues to work with a voluntary and multi-party provincial working group that is reviewing issues like underground locates to ensure all understand the significant financial and operational impacts involved.
BC HYDRO BC Hydro has no evidence to indicate that a field locate service would reduce the number of contacts with our underground utilities and increase the reliability of our system while enhancing worker safety. This statement is based on: - Current detection technology which does not provide positive location of underground plant; - WCB rules requiring positive location of underground plant via hand digging prior to machine excavation; - A 99.98 success rate during our last fiscal year in providing accurate locate information under our current practice. Based on this information, it is difficult to make a case that offering a field locate service would significantly increase worker safety or significantly decrease the number of disruptions to BC Hydro underground plant. It has been several years since BC Hydro has routinely sent staff to provide on-site locates. Our current practice for providing locate information to requesting parties involves: - Providing drawings showing location of underground plant at no cost upon request; - Providing assistance in interpreting BC Hydro drawings upon request. The onus remains on the excavating party to ensure that they positively determine the location of underground utilities before they dig. It is not BC Hydros intention to increase the municipalities underground construction costs. However, any costs to ensure a safe work site should be borne by the party who is initiating the work and not by BC Hydro customers. Our Customer Projects and Operations staff would be pleased to continue to meet with any of the municipalities that have concerns about reading our maps, or to discuss underground utility areas that are uniquely complicated.