cartome.org
23 June 2002
[Federal Register: June 13, 2002 (Volume 67, Number 114)]
[Notices]
[Page 40768-40770]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr13jn02-153]
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DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION
Research and Special Programs Administration
Pipeline Safety: Gas and Hazardous Liquid Pipeline Mapping
AGENCY: Research and Special Programs Administration (RSPA), DOT.
ACTION: Notice; issuance of advisory bulletin.
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SUMMARY: The Research and Special Programs Administration's (RSPA)
Office of Pipeline Safety (OPS) is issuing this advisory to gas
distribution, gas transmission, and hazardous liquid pipeline systems.
Owners and operators should review their information and mapping
systems to ensure that the operator has clear, accurate, and useable
information on the location and characteristics of all pipes, valves,
regulators, and other pipeline elements for use in emergency response,
pipe location and marking, and pre-construction planning. This includes
ensuring that construction records, maps, and operating history are
readily available to appropriate operating, maintenance, and emergency
response personnel.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Richard Huriaux, (202) 366-4565; Steve
Fischer, (202) 366-6267; or by e-mail, steve.fischer@rspa.dot.gov. This
document can be viewed at the OPS home page at http://ops.dot.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. Background
The need for accurate maps of pipeline systems has been highlighted
by pipeline accidents in which the lack of accurate maps contributed to
an accident or inhibited effective emergency response. The National
Transportation Safety Board's (NTSB) Safety Recommendation P-87-34
urged RSPA to revise the pipeline safety regulations ``to require that
gas company system maps and records be maintained accurately to
identify the locations, size, and operation[al] pressure of all their
pipelines.'' Most recently, in Safety Recommendation P-97-19, NTSB
emphasized the need for RSPA/OPS to ``develop mapping standards for a
common [pipeline] mapping system, with a goal to actively promote its
widespread use.'' NTSB recommends that pipeline mapping should consider
the amount of detail and the accuracy of information necessary for
effective use.
These recommendations resulted from a series of accidents in which
a lack of accurate maps played a role. A typical problem described by
the NTSB included workers at a college campus in Connecticut that
searched for more than a half hour to find the shut-off valve after
excavation damage to a telephone cable. The gas line and valves were
not marked on maps. Another was the 1996 gas explosion in San Juan,
Puerto Rico, which resulted in 33 fatalities and 69 injuries. A lack of
accurate information on and maps of the underground piping system was
cited as a factor contributing to this excavation-caused accident.
NTSB noted that damage prevention programs often use many different
types of maps, ranging from city road maps to grid systems based on
State coordinate systems. Pipeline engineers, maintenance workers,
repair crews, and emergency responders are forced to use a variety of
data sources to locate underground piping and facilities, including
land use maps, zoning maps, tax assessor maps, easement descriptions,
highway and transportation network maps, topographic maps, construction
permit drawings, construction plans, and aerial photographs.
NTSB also noted that different utilities and pipeline companies may
use maps that vary in scale, resolution, data formats, notational
systems, and accuracy. Some pipelines have imaged older paper-based
diagrams and maps and some have developed fully digitized mapping
systems. The accuracy of the underlying information on these maps is
often problematical. For example, the digital maps may not reflect the
uncertainties inherent in the original paper source maps. In addition,
many mapping systems lack any information on abandoned facilities,
without which excavators may mistake the abandoned facility for an
active, potentially dangerous, pipeline.
Maps and other locational records maintained by gas companies and
other underground facility operators are the most common source of
information
[[Page 40769]]
about these facilities. The pipeline safety regulations for both gas
and hazardous liquid operators require operators to (1) Maintain
current records and maps of the location of their facilities for use in
operations, maintenance, and emergency response activities (e.g.,
surveillance, leak surveys, cathodic protection, abnormal operations
response, etc.); (2) establish active damage prevention programs,
including participation in local one-call notification programs,
outreach to local construction and excavation companies, ensuring
accurate location and marking of pipeline facilities, and explanation
of this system of markings to persons who give notice of their intent
to excavate near a pipeline; and, (3) hire and train employees and
contractors to safely perform their duties, including both routine and
emergency operations.
All gas and hazardous liquid pipeline operators must maintain an
operating and maintenance plan that includes procedures for making
construction records, maps, and operating history available to
appropriate operating personnel to enable them to safely and
effectively perform their duties (49 CFR 192.605 and 195.402).
Furthermore, the hazardous liquid pipeline regulations at 49 CFR
195.404 explicitly require that the maps and records must include, at a
minimum, the following information:
(1) Location and identification of pipeline facilities.
(2) All crossings of public roads, railroads, rivers, buried
utilities, and foreign pipelines.
(3) The maximum operating pressure of each pipeline.
(4) The diameter, grade, type, and nominal wall thickness of all
pipe. Not all this information need be on maps, but must be readily
available to appropriate personnel.
Operators also need to ensure that abandoned facilities are not
inadvertently identified as active. This is especially important in
locating gas mains and service lines in congested urban environments.
Operator maps that are used for one-call response and pipeline location
and marking should clearly distinguish pipelines that do or could
contain gas or hazardous liquids (pipeline that have not been purged
and cleaned and are available for service on short notice) from those
lines that are abandoned (purged, cleaned, and pipe ends sealed) and do
not contain gas or hazardous liquids.
Operators have a responsibility to maintain construction records,
maps, and operating history and to make this information available to
appropriate operating personnel to enable them to safely and
effectively perform their duties. Therefore, RSPA/OPS is issuing this
advisory bulletin to all pipeline operators to emphasize the operator's
responsibility to: (1) Accurately locate and clearly mark key pipeline
features and other information needed for effective emergency response
on company maps and records; (2) keep these maps and records up-to-date
as pipeline construction and modifications take place; (3) be
knowledgeable about their abandoned lines and to keep data on their
location to further eliminate confusion with active lines during
construction or emergency response activities; and (4) communicate
pipeline information and maps to appropriate operating, maintenance,
and emergency response personnel.
RSPA/OPS has been working to develop a national mapping system for
use by Federal and State pipeline inspectors. The National Pipeline
Mapping System (NPMS) collects selected data on natural gas
transmission and hazardous liquid pipelines. The NPMS data standards
are consistent with the policies of the Federal Geographic Data
Committee (FGDC) and the mapping application uses commercial mapping
software. Although the data submissions to the NPMS are limited in
comparison to the requirements for the detailed maps used by pipeline
operators, these standards emphasize the importance of using accurate
geospatial data, multiuser access, and standardized pipeline mapping
data. RSPA's/OPS's intention in creating a mapping standard is to
harmonize efforts across federal and state agencies to set criteria for
map quality and to have a uniform standard for various mapping
purposes.
Another initiative to improve the accuracy of information in
pipeline location is RSPA's/OPS's issuance of a Broad Agency
Announcement (BAA) for research and development proposals on damage
prevention and leak detection, including development of advanced pipe
location technologies. Furthermore, RSPA/OPS is finalizing a
Cooperative Agreement with the Common Ground Alliance (CGA) to assist
with public education at the national, state, and local levels and to
provide state and local officials with information and tools to help
their residents live safely with pipelines, and to become familiar with
pipeline locations. The CGA is examining and promoting practices that
have proven to effectively reduce the risk of damage to underground
facilities, including pipeline data and mapping systems. We urge all
pipeline operators to contribute to pipeline research and development
on location technologies and to work with CGA to improve and
standardize pipeline mapping systems. This includes the promotion of
consistent mapping symbols for pipeline components and common
notational systems.
We are also working with our inspectors and our pipeline safety
partners in the National Association of Pipeline Safety Representatives
to focus during standard inspections on ensuring that operators are
maintaining clear and current records and maps. Moreover, we are also
ensuring during inspections of operator qualification programs that
pipeline operations and maintenance workers have demonstrated their
ability to use company maps and records for timely and decisive
emergency response, as well as to support accurate underground facility
marking. We recognize that operators and excavators should never rely
solely on maps before beginning an excavation near a buried utility,
but should fully comply with state underground excavation laws and pipe
locating technologies.
II. Advisory Bulletin (ADB-02-03)
To: Owners and Operators of Gas Distribution Systems.
Subject: Gas and Hazardous Liquid Pipeline Mapping.
Purpose: To advise owners and operators of gas distribution, gas
transmission, and hazardous liquid pipeline systems of the need to
maintain and review construction records, maps, and operating history,
and to make this information available to operating, maintenance, and
emergency response personnel.
Advisory: Owners and operators of gas distribution, gas
transmission, and hazardous liquid pipeline systems should ensure that
accurate construction records, maps, and operating history are
available to appropriate operating, maintenance, and emergency response
personnel. The maps or associated records should provide the following
information:
(1) Location and identification of pipeline facilities, including
key features needed in emergency response.
(2) Crossings of roads, railroads, rivers, buried utilities, and
pipelines.
(3) The maximum operating pressure of each pipeline.
(4) The diameter, grade, type, and nominal wall thickness of pipe.
RSPA urges every pipeline operator to (1) accurately locate and
clearly mark on company maps and records key pipeline features and
other information needed for effective emergency response; (2) keep
these maps and records up-to-date as pipeline construction and
modifications take place; (3) ensure that
[[Page 40770]]
its personnel are knowledgeable about the location of abandoned
pipelines and to keep data on their location in order to further
eliminate confusion with active pipelines during construction or
emergency response activities; and (4) communicate pipeline information
and maps to appropriate operating, maintenance, and emergency response
personnel. Operators are also encouraged to collaborate with the Common
Ground Alliance and the Federal and State pipeline safety programs to
improve all phases of underground facility damage prevention, including
improved mapping standards; and to work toward developing and using, to
the maximum feasible extent, consistent mapping symbols and notational
systems.
Issued in Washington, DC, on June 6, 2002.
Stacey L. Gerard,
Associate Administrator for Pipeline Safety.
[FR Doc. 02-14955 Filed 6-12-02; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4910-60-P