The Safety Moment by Utility Safety Partners

Send us Fan Mail Just over 50% of Great Britain’s utility infrastructure is protected by Line Search Before You Dig. That’s more than one million kilometres of pipes, cables, gas, high pressure fuel, water, and telecoms / fibre optic networks.  They receive more than 16,000 searches per day.   If you’ve ever been curious about the way underground infrastructure is kept safe in the UK, this is the...

Send us Fan Mail A best practice is generally understood to be a professional procedure that is accepted or prescribed as being the most correct, or most effective. But what exactly goes into determining best practices? And when should a best practice evolve into legislation? Gordon Campbell is an OQ Evaluator with ACON Utilities in Ontario. He’s worked in best practices with the ORCGA and the CCG...

Send us Fan Mail After a career in law enforcement Chad Kennedy knew he was suffering from PTSD. He’d seen the signs before… in his father.  One night, hell bent on destruction and suicide, he eventually passed out, waking up in the morning to a surprise. In his drunken stupor he’d gone on social media. He had somehow pledged to walk across Canada, to raise awareness for PTSD, and people were resp...

Send us Fan Mail Safety needs reminders, constantly. Public Awareness.  Once upon a time that meant pamphlets, billboards, radio and TV ads. All of those are still part of the promotional mix but new digital tools are being added like geo fencing, social media strategies, and even generative AI. Not only do they allow for better targeting but provable success statistics.  This is a significant cha...

Send us Fan Mail Cliff Meidl was 20 years old in the mid 80’s when he was operating a jackhammer and struck three buried electrical cables.  In that moment he couldn’t tell you if he was dead or alive. But he survived. When he left the hospital, he wasn’t able to use his legs at all. His knee bone was completely gone and doctors were talking with him about amputation.  He was prescribed physical t...

Send us Fan Mail The pandemic introduced a number of societal shifts. From a wellness perspective we spent a chunk of time just in survival mode. As we emerge from that, many of us have used that time to take stock of our lives and our personal values.  But there’s an additional stress on society. Many of those we would turn to for help with wellness, need help themselves. Doctors have been overwo...

Send us Fan Mail The Damage Information Reporting Tool provides a summary and analysis of damages reported through Canada in the DIRT System. We know from the latest report there were, on average, 45 damages reported per day last year in Canada. And we know from previous reports that number has remained fairly consistent over the last five+ years. It’s actually a very positive sign that damages pe...

Send us Fan Mail In this episode Mike looks back at the numbers in 2022 and ahead to big plans in 2023. If you’re a member, employee, or supporter of Utility Safety Partners this is a great recap episode. There were 460,000 locate requests in Alberta in 2022. Second highest in a decade and amazingly 88% f those requests were made online.  The big Utility Safety Conference in Red Deer is coming up...

Send us Fan Mail Holiday season is a unique time of year, one that introduces more visiting, more driving, more parties, and the need to remain safety conscious.  In this episode Mike talks with members of Edmonton’s Fire Rescue Services and Police Department. They share their personal stories.  Guests: Dennis Friedel , Assistant Fire Marshall, Edmonton Fire Rescue Services  Seth Dodman , Edmonton...

Send us Fan Mail The FNCA is the evolution in the One Call Industry from One Call to Notification centres. Predecessors include One Calls of American (OCOA) and One Call Systems International (OCSI). Careful analysis showed the industry needed an international organization, open to all Notification Centres regardless of operational model, to provide support and training for all facets of business...

Send us Fan Mail Every Spring Utility Safety Partners needs to get the word out: Click Before You Dig This Season. It’s an important advertising campaign designed to save from damages, and, potentially, save lives. This year’s campaign shifted to a more digital campaign which provides significantly better opportunity to report accurately on how many people went directly to the website and clicked...

Send us Fan Mail You may already be familiar with the Ground Disturbance 201 Training Standard intended for supervisors, until now something more for entry and mid-level employees has never been available. Ground disturbance occurs when workers perform an operation that disturbs the earth. These activities present unique risks including cave-ins, contact with underground facilities, and electrocut...

Send us Fan Mail This year in Ontario there are expected to be nine million locate requests. That’s a lot of moving pieces, all coming through the Ontario One Call system thanks to Bill 8 which requires all owners of underground infrastructure be members of Ontario One Call.  So, nine million locates all of them expecting to make contact once and within five days have all the locates made at their...

Send us Fan Mail Doug Lapp wears several “safety” hats. He’s the President and CEO of the Ontario Regional Common Ground Alliance (ORCGA) and the Chair of the Executive Committee of the Canadian Common Ground Alliance (CCGA).  Later this year, the CCGA will get everyone back together again at it’s annual symposium in October, to be held in Whistler, BC. In this episode we learn a little more about...

Send us Fan Mail ATCO’s natural gas system in western Canada is vast. 41,000 kilometres of distribution pipe; 9,000 kilometres of transmission pipe; through 300 communities and serving 1.2 million customers. The responsibility to keep that infrastructure safe rests on a team led by Iain Stables.   In this episode Mike and Iain talk about the tools and programs ATCO uses today for each distribution...

Send us Fan Mail Utility Safety Partners (formerly Alberta One-Call) is proposing comprehensive provincial damage-prevention legislation for buried and above-ground utilities in Alberta. Currently, only the Canada Energy Regulator’s (CER) Damage Prevention Regulations and the Alberta Energy Regulator’s (AER) Pipeline Rules require mandatory registration with Utility Safety Partners.    We want all...

Send us Fan Mail It’s been hard work by a lot of people to get to 4.0 The Canadian Common Ground Alliance is publishing the newest version of its national harmonized Best Practices. But what exactly are best practices? Are they enforceable? And if they aren’t, what’s the point in having them? Turns out there are multiple, valuable, points to be made. Guests Gordon Campbell, Chair CCGA Best Practic...

Send us Fan Mail Click Before You Dig and always ask yourself Where's The Line? These are two of the core safety messages featured over and again by Utility Safety Partners. They need to be. They need to be more than messages - they need to be human habit. To that end Utility Safety Partners engages Goodwill Ambassadors in different areas of the province to make that human connection with peo...

Send us Fan Mail Every brand needs to have a presence on social media in 2022. For safety organizations, it can be a tough sell. It’s difficult to draw followers and engage audiences.  But Utility Safety Partners has perhaps the strongest social media following of its peers. Why so many Likes? Why so many followers? In this episode, hosted by guest host Doug Downs, the President of Utility Safety...

Send us Fan Mail Saskatchewan has the recipe. For the past 30+ years they’ve been holding contractor breakfasts in various parts of the province promoting safety and safe digging.   That’s wouldn’t seem to be a unique recipe except… THEY WORK! Most Associations and Organizations would need to be honest the various breakfasts they’ve tried to make successful inevitably, fade away. Lack of interest,...

Send us Fan Mail Natural disasters, accidents or incidents or the skill of saving someone's life when seconds really matter. How many of us are comfortable performing that function and how many know how? In this new segment of our Groundbreakers Series, Host Mike Sullivan looks at those "Ready to Rescue." And showcases a new and interactive platform designed to help stimulate and ed...

Send us Fan Mail Ground Breakers. They are the originators, the ones who pioneer or innovate in a way that others seek to replicate. They lead, they make growth and improvement possible for the benefit of our society. Ground Breakers pierce the resistance of ideation, habit, and custom to change the way things are done. In this episode host Mike Sullivan talks to Bob Kipp, a pioneer for damage pre...

Send us Fan Mail This episode begins a new series called Ground Breakers. They are the originators, the ones who pioneer or innovate in a way that others seek to replicate. They lead, they make growth and improvement possible for the benefit of our society. Ground Breakers pierce the resistance of ideation, habit, and custom to change the way things are done. In this episode host Mike Sullivan tal...

Send us Fan Mail It’s the home of buried treasure, stories of the past and the mystery and mystique of another time. Oak Island, on Canada’s east coast has long been a popular destination for treasure hunters. In this episode of Prairie Podcast, host Mike Sullivan talks to Tony Sampson, a man who is living out his boyhood dream. Tony Sampson can be reached at: https://www.saltydogtours.com/ Follow...

Send us Fan Mail The Halloween season is here, a perfect time to indulge our interest in mystery. In this edition of Prairie Podcast, host Mike Sullivan goes digging for real life mysteries that lay underground. From tunnels used by gangsters to east coast treasure hunting, this episode leaves listeners wondering … what’s really down there? Guest Kelly Carty, Business Development Manager at Tunnel...