Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) is responsible for procurement and real property management for federal departments and agencies. There are about a hundred departments and agencies in the Federal government, of which 23 are custodians of real property assets. PSPC, National Defense and Parks Canada are the largest. PAPC's responsibilities includes underground infrastructure on federal property. PSPC's strategy is a bottom-up approach in which the federal government is working within the framework of existing provincial legislation. In the past two year PSPC has joined all provincial one call centres across the country within that framework is responding to requests for information about underground infrastructure on federal property. PSPC has undertaken the task of creating a PSPC Directive, Standard and Guidelines for the protection of underground infrastructure. Ultimately the intention is to submit these documents to Treasury Board to encourage other agencies that are custodians of real property assets as well as regulatory agencies to adopt a common approach to managing information about underground infrastructure.
In the national capital region PSPC initiated a pilot project with Ontario One Call to see how the one call notification system would work with national and crown owned properties within the National Capital Area (NCA). The first stage of the PSPC requires compiling maps of existing Federal underground infrastructure enabling the government to respond to information requests. To do that required determining what information it intends to share taking into consideration Government of Canada security requirements. Secondly it required that PSPC and other federal agencies register with Ontario One Call. The NCA pilot has made it possible to identify underground infrastructure that would not have been seen without going through the process. As a result PSPC is gaining a better understanding of the relationship with contractors and excavator which is helping build a more robust system and business procedures for collecting location information about underground infrastructure on federal property. The experience that has been gained in the NCA is being passed down to the PSPC regional organizations to enable them to develop similar capacities for managing location data about underground infrastructure.
The challenge is to capture comprehensive data not only about the accurate location of underground infrastructure, but other properties of the facilities, such as diameter of pipe, cable capacity, type of material, its condition, when it was last inspected, and so on. In each region PSPC is carrying out an inventory of existing underground assets and based on that conducting a gap analysis. The many gaps that were found which were not just missing data, but data that was only available in the form of paper documents. This has motivated a drive within PSPC to get away from paper documents and move to a completely digital environment based on standards that allow this data to be shared easily within the government and with external entities such as utility and telecom operators, contractors and excavators. For example, the Parliamentary Precinct is the responsibility of three or four different government departments each with its own staff. Underground infrastructure on Parliament Hill is already very congested and with the amount of construction and development planned and underway it is essential to know reliably where things are underground and be able to identify clashes with new designs and to be able to hare this data interoperability among the several agencies involved.
PSPC has undertaken the task of creating a PSPC Directive, Standard and Guidelines for the protection of underground infrastructure. This requires engaging with provincial and territorial one call centres, developing the capability to respond to requests for information, and developing business processes to improve the accuracy, timeliness, and comprehensiveness of the data about underground infrastructure that is maintained by the Federal Geomatics group. The longer term goal is for Treasury Board to encourage custodians of real property asets assets such as National Defense and Parks Canada, as well as regulatory agencies including Transport Canada, Canada Energy Regulator and Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) to adopt similar policies so that this approach to damage prevention becomes pervasive in the Federal government.
Currently this initiative is a bottom-up effort that encourages people to participate voluntarily because of the benefits it provides to them in their work. The goal is develop a concrete, feasible solution that does not disrupt current operations and that will demonstrate the value of the underground information that is being collected and shared with stakeholders. In the future it is expected that the awareness of the significant benefits from better management of underground assets will reach higher levels within government and engender a discussion on ways to collaborate on underground infrastructure throughout the federal government.
Background
In 2015 CSA Z247 the first Damage Prevention Standard in Canada was released. It describes the damage prevention process and elements would reduce damages to Canada's underground infrastructure improving public, worker and community safety and preserving the environment, It was sponsored by the National Energy Board, Natural Resources Canada, the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association and the Canadian Gas Association.
In 2014 the Senate Standing Committee on Energy, the Environment, and Natural Resources completed two studies; Moving Energy Safely: A Study of the Safe Transport of Hydrocarbons by Pipelines, Takers and Railcars and Digging Safely - One Call Notification Systems and the Prevention of Damage to Canada's Buried Infrastructure. The Senate Standing Committee followed this with specific recommendations;
- That the federal government reference the CSA Z247 standard for protection and prevention of damage to buried infrastructure and encourage provinces and territories to reference the standard in legislation.
- That buried facilities on federal land be registered with a provincial or territorial one-call services and that the federal government require anyone undertaking excavation on federal land to call the local one-call centre.
- That the federal government require all owners of federally regulated buried infrastructure to become members of a provincial or territorial one-call service.
This post is partly based based on the contribution of Jennifer Ross, PSPC, to the panel discussion on the role of government in underground infrastructure at the Canadian Underground Forum (CUF). You can listen to all the talks at CUF on the GeoIgnite CUF Youtube channel.
Subscribe
Comments